


Sudden Light

by LilaDiurne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Depression, Drinking problems, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, Loneliness, M/M, Memory Charms, Memory Loss, Not Epilogue Compliant, PTSD, Past Child Abuse, Post-War, Severus Snape Lives, Sexual Content, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:47:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 48,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22518745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilaDiurne/pseuds/LilaDiurne
Summary: Seven years after the war, in the dead of winter, Severus Snape meets a beautiful stranger on a train. Inevitably, he falls in love.Inspired by D.G. Rossetti and Paul Celan and based on the movieEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 189
Kudos: 451





	1. SATURDAY - residual recollections

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the 2004 movie _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_. I’ve kept some things, but it’s quite different overall. At least I think so. You don’t have to have seen the movie to read this. In fact, I think it would be better if you haven’t, this way you can discover how great a story and concept it is. I’ve adapted it quite a bit, of course, to make it work with magic and with Harry and Severus.
> 
> I was originally going to post this as a one-shot but then realised that it was going to be way too long. So it will be posted in four parts instead, each centered on a single day and told from Severus’ point of view. The timeline is a bit out of order, so if something doesn’t make sense to you at first, don’t despair. Everything will be explained in the end.
> 
> I have a good part of this written, but it’s not completely done, so I don’t know when exactly the chapters will be posted. Probably a few weeks apart. I hope you’ll enjoy this.
> 
> I’m on Tumblr as liladiurne. Stop by if you want, and say hello.

* * *

**SUDDEN LIGHT**

* * *

_  
I have been here before,_   
_But when or how I cannot tell._   
_I know the grass beyond the door,_   
_The sweet keen smell,_   
_The sighing sound, the lights around the shore._

_You have been mine before,_   
_How long ago I may not know,_   
_But just when at that swallow’s soar_   
_Your neck turn’d so,_   
_Some veil did fall, I knew it all of yore._

_Has this been thus before?_   
_And shall not thus time’s eddying flight_   
_Still with our lives our love restore_   
_In death’s despite,_   
_And day and night yield one delight once more?_

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI  
“Sudden Light”

* * *

**1**

**SATURDAY**

_residual recollections_

* * *

First is the sound of retreating footsteps and the muffled, distant slamming of a door. Then Severus startles awake.

The drapes are open, filling the room with pale light. He winces and shuts his eyes against it quickly, but the pain assaults him at once. Acute, violent, and throbbing.

He moans a pitiful sound, cradling his head in both hands.

He’d been dreaming, just before. He can see shadows of it still, imprinted behind his eyelids. Ghostly images – faces, lights, blurry shapes. It was all there a second ago, so close he can almost touch it.

He breathes in shakily, fighting a sudden wave of nausea. His entire head radiates pain, his whole face, from jaw to eye sockets to temples. A stupid, blindingly scorching attempt to concentrate on this torture, to explore and analyse it, allows him to locate the core of it, somewhere deep inside his skull. It’s like the bone cavity has been cut through, pried open. Like something is exposed and raw. Soft, beaten, and pulsing.

His first conclusion is that he’s having some sort of stroke. But his body is still able to move. His left arm is functional, and his right one too. He can raise them both steadily without trouble. Nothing else feels numb or tingling or stiff. His tongue isn’t tied and the capacity for speech is still present.

Severus tests this with a long and satisfying litany of cuss words.

He probes at his face gently. Nothing out of the ordinary here either. No sinking of the mouth, no stiffness. He can breathe steadily, and his chest doesn’t feel tight. He takes his pulse, just to be sure, and finds his heart rate a little elevated, but it’s probably just from the shock of waking up in such pain. Nothing to worry about.

It takes a ridiculously long time for him to realise that he isn’t in bed and has spent the night on the beat-up sofa in his study. His back is already protesting this moronic decision. At least he’s brought a blanket and a pillow. And he’s had the good sense to light a fire in the small hearth. The flat gets so cold at night this time of year that he’d probably have croaked in his sleep without it.

He fumbles around and finds his wand poking out between the cushions, close at hand. Once the drapes are spelled shut, he opens his eyes again, tentatively. The pain pulses a few more times and then seems to lessen with the absence of light. He lets his head fall back on the pillow, taking deep breaths.

The old clock on the mantelpiece tells him it’s almost seven.

He doesn’t remember _anything_ about last night. What happened? Why did he sleep in the study? And what the devil did he do to end up in such a state?

The answer is on a corner of the desk, in the form of a large, empty bottle of scotch. He throws a disconcerted look at it before turning away.

It must be twenty years since he’s had this much to drink.

Twenty-three years, to be exact.

In ’81, when the Dark Lord first disappeared, Severus got majorly pissed. As did most of the wizarding population that day, yes. But for him, it was an isolated event. He’d never indulged before, and he hasn’t since. He’s long ago promised himself he wouldn’t go there. Though the temptation has been persistent more than once, he’s managed to keep this promise. That he will never fall so low, no matter the hardships thrown at him, no matter the nightmares and the memories and the loneliness. That he will endure them completely.

That he will not turn into his father and drown his sorrows that way. That he will not become a rowdy, hostile and vulgar and spiteful ruin of a man who destroys everything and everyone he touches.

Not that there’s really anyone around for Severus to destroy, mind you.

Point being, a good old calming draught usually does the job when a cup of tea is not strong enough.

His father was a drinker, and his father’s father, and so on and so on, without a doubt. There is alcoholism in his genes, buried deep within, passed onto him through generations of scowling and shouting men. He knows it. He can feel its presence sometimes, its eagerness to come out. He imagines it like something crouching in the shadows, ready to pounce on him at any moment.

It’s a threat he’s learned to live with, this fear of losing control. And so, for most of his adult life, except for that one slipup years ago to celebrate his unexpected freedom from the Dark Lord’s clutches, he’s never allowed himself more than the occasional glass of spirits, and only when it’s offered to him. He rarely even finishes it, only drinking enough to warm his throat and leaving it half-full. The risk of coming off as rude to his host be damned, addiction is the last thing he needs.

Years and years of hard-fought discipline. And then last night, for some reason, he’d decided to down a whole bottle…

_Oh, stop your bloody whining, Severus! You’ll survive just fine. One time doesn’t mean you’ll be making a habit of it._

Oh no, he won’t. The pain is enough to dissuade him.

He drags himself from the sofa and manages to get to his feet, albeit unsteadily. Then he stands there, dumbfounded, looking down at himself.

He’s wearing pyjamas. New ones that he’s never worn or even seen before. Black silk, with thin silver trim at the sleeves and hem.

He touches the fabric hesitantly, feeling the softness. As elegant as these are, Severus doesn’t wear pyjamas. He usually sleeps naked, imagining a warm body curled up next to his.

Where did these come from? He doesn’t remember buying them.

Maybe he shops when he’s pissed. Maybe he’s that kind of a drunk.

He snorts. _This is it, old man. You’re finally losing your bloody mind._

Outside the study, the flat is biting cold, and Severus flicks his wand at the old radiator on the landing. It rattles to life, the water rushing through the pipes noisily, and he heads into the bathroom, head still pounding, as a new wave of nausea overtakes him.

He somehow manages not to throw up, but his reflection in the mirror confirms his intuition. He looks terrible. Eyes red-rimmed, face haggard and stubbled, hair lank. It looks as though he hasn’t groomed in over a week.

“What the hell is happening to you?” he hisses, staring accusingly at his reflection. “Get a hold of yourself.”

He gets to work, trying to make himself presentable. It wouldn’t do to scare away the customers, would it? They already think he’s surly and unapproachable and stinking of potion fumes. Well, none of them has explicitly said so, but surely that’s what they must think. And it wouldn’t do for them to start questioning his hygiene as well. No, it wouldn’t do at all.

He simply cannot afford to start losing sales to that idiot Covington up the road, with his stupidly named and unfortunately popular _Elixir of Youth_. Severus suspects it might be nothing more than a variant of _Pepper-Up_ with rosewater as base and cinnamon for taste. Genuine or not, it’s become something of a necessity for vain, gullible middle-aged witches. He’s been thinking about asking Ainsworth to send one of her more discreet friends over and bring back a vial, so they can analyse it and find out once and for all.

The prospect of ruining that grinning, self-important twit’s reputation is an exhilarating thought. Severus smirks at himself in the mirror.

He washes and shaves and then heads into the bedroom to get dressed in his usual dark trousers and shirt.

He owns seven pairs of trousers and seven shirts. One for each day of the week.

As always, he completes the outfit with a clean and neatly pressed robe.

Frankly, he doesn’t know why he bothers with it. It’s always a disaster after a whole day of brewing, even with an apron on top of it, and most of the time the laboratory gets so stuffy that he ends up taking it off lest he suffers a heatstroke. But Ainsworth insists. The brief glimpses he allows his customers to catch of him during the day is primordial for business, she says. He’s not a dungeon-dweller bound on scaring the wits out of schoolchildren anymore, he’s a respectable business owner, she says. He must look the part, she says.

The girl being well-versed in human interactions – well, better-versed than he is, certainly – he’s reluctantly decided to heed her advice on such matters. Purely for financial reasons, of course.

Thus, his wardrobe is now full of these tailed robes, all in identical black. He owns seven, one for each day of the week. The blasted things cost him a fortune, but Ainsworth says they make him look fit.

Severus scoffs, frowning at his reflection in the tall, antique mirror of his bedroom, trying to locate any part of his body anyone would deem consider _fit_ and finding none.

Frankly, if the girl wasn’t so useful for running errands and minding the shop and dealing with the customers, he would have sent her scurrying a long time ago. Not that he could if he tried, mind you. His scathing remarks and unmistakable rudeness never seem to affect her. Maybe he’s losing his touch as he gets older. But then again, even as a student she was never particularly afraid of him.

Who would have thought he’d ever take a Hufflepuff as his assistant?

He shakes his head moodily, buttoning the collar of his robe all the way up, high enough to hide the scars on his neck.

As his fingers graze the damaged flesh, there is a spark in the back of his mind. A sudden, fleeting memory.

_Warm lips sliding over his skin, sucking softly._

_A hot tongue trailing fire along the mangled edges._

_Whispers breathed into the shell of his ear. Inaudible. Tender._

Severus grips the dresser for support. A burning shiver shoots along his spine. A trembling breath escapes his throat.

He shuts his eyes tightly, desperate to find the memory again, searching in the darkest, furthest corners, rummaging. But it’s gone now. Vanished.

He must have dreamt it, imagined it. He _must_ have.

No one has ever dared. He’s never allowed such intimacy. Would never allow it.

 _Never_.

Not that anyone would ever want to do such a thing to him, surely…

He searches his mind some more, just to be certain.

The rare sexual encounters he’s had since obtaining these scars restrict themselves to embarrassing fumbles with strangers in dark corners of Knockturn Alley, and perhaps three or four slightly more meaningful acts with Muggle men he’s managed to pick up in pubs and carefully avoided seeing again afterwards.

One of them had touched his scarred neck once, with curious, gentle fingertips, but Severus had grabbed his wrist before this exploration could go any further. He’d been a little too rough about it perhaps, eyes dark with warning. The action had not been repeated.

That must have been… two years ago, at the very least. Maybe even longer.

Has it really been two years since he’s shared another’s bed, since he’s let another touch him?

As one grows older, time flies in the most terrifying ways.

He skims his mind again, trying to remember the dream from which the stray memory originates, to piece together the rest of it.

Merlin, he wants more. There _has_ to be more. If only he could just find it. It’s right there. It’s so close. And yet…

There’s this uncanny familiarity attached to it all. As brief a flash as it was, he was able to identify this feeling. The feeling that this is something he’s dreamt of more than once but keeps forgetting as soon as he wakes. And there’s no remembering it now either. The throbbing in his head makes the task practically impossible, but still he looks for details, avidly, starved for the slightest glimpse, the briefest recollection of being touched so tenderly. Even if only in a dream.

But there’s nothing there now. Only darkness where the vision once so vividly sparked.

Rattled and confused, and in an even fouler mood now, Severus heads into the kitchen, lights the stove and puts the kettle on, doing his best to pretend that the shaking in his hands is due to the cold and the splitting headache, and to ignore the strange longing in his chest.

He stares out the window, waiting for the water to boil.

He could get this done with a flick of his wand, of course, but he never does so. Perhaps it’s been engrained into him after years of watching his mother do it this way to adhere to his father’s no-magic-in-my-house regimen. But he’s almost grown to enjoy it by now. These small moments, these series of small actions, of little tasks and rituals, make his life balanced, give him comfort.

Severus Snape is a creature of habit.

In the morning, he makes his tea without magic and drinks it black while skimming the paper, sitting in silence at his small kitchen table.

This is the way things have been for the past seven years, and this is good enough.

It’s snowed a lot during the night, and he opens the window to clear the sill for the owls, scraping at the snow with an old wooden spatula. The thick flakes shimmer as they fall softly into the alley below.

Outside, everything is quiet and still. The whole world seems suspended in time, in between two moments. Like a breath waiting to be let out. Spread out before him, Diagon Alley is a peaceful sight. Dark rooftops covered with carpets of snow, and chimneys blowing puffs of smoke into the pale sky.

Severus watches all this in silence until the cold bites at his face and he goes to shut the window. Before he can manage it, however, a dark owl sweeps down and lands before him, hooting a sharp greeting and extending its leg, to which is attached his copy of today’s _Daily Prophet_.

He’s barely untied the paper before another owl lands beside the first one. The newcomer, white-faced and intimidatingly large, drops a dark envelope into Severus’ open palm and takes off at once, relieved of its duty.

He tucks the paper under his arm and shuts the window, peering curiously at the envelope. He can already tell, just by touch, that it’s spelled so only the recipient can open it. It’s thick parchment, pitch black, completely blank except for a name in calligraphed silver ink.

_Marnie Ainsworth_

He sighs, slipping it in the pocket of his robe.

How many times has he told the girl to stop getting her mail delivered here? The liberties kids take these days…

Severus pours himself a cup of tea.

He owns only two cups, and he uses his favourite, as always. A yellowed, chipped one that he’s used every day for years. The spare is a Christmas gift from his teaching days, red with patterned silhouettes of white reindeers and the handle shaped like a piece of tree bark. An atrocity that he keeps for the rare occasions he has guests over and might need a second cup.

Along with those, he owns three teaspoons, four forks, and two knives. Two saucers and two plates, mismatched. He owns a cooking pan and two pots. One kettle. In his cupboard is a small collection of teabags, an old pouch of rice, and some canned beans.

He owns a rubber plant that he moves around so it can get sunlight. Kitchen table to windowsill. Windowsill to shelf. Shelf to counter. And back to table.

It’s not much, but it’s enough.

To the eye of an outsider, it certainly might seem like a lonely man’s dwelling. But Severus is not lonely here. Not even the slightest bit.

He’s got a small but cosy flat. Yes, it gets cold, but that’s only in the winter, and he’s used to that after spending years in Hogwarts’ dungeons. At least he owns this house, has bought it with his own money. It’s not lent to him like his teacher’s quarters were. And it hasn’t been left to him by deceased relatives like the house on Spinner’s End was – a dreary place filled with a different kind of cold. He chose it and bought it, and it’s entirely, properly his own.

He’s got a home. He’s got his books and his potions. He’s got a job and a steady income. He’s got peace and quiet. Quiet is good. What more could he possibly want?

He grabs his old fountain pen and flips through the paper, eager to get started on the daily crossword.

_Is this what you’ve come to? Tea, silence, and crosswords? Is this all there is now? Is this all there will be from now on, every single day of your life until you die?_

He sighs sharply, pushing these sombre thoughts to the back of his mind, as he always does, and concentrates on the page.

Three across is _hellebore_. He smirks, scrawling the word swiftly into the grid.

_Look at you, getting all excited. Pathetic._

He finishes the puzzle in under three minutes. Then he sits in silence, drinking his tea, staring out the window.

It’s been seven years. Seven years since the war. Since he’s left Hogwarts, since he’s bought the shop and the flat.

Seven years of this. Of tea, silence, and staring out the window.

And lying to himself.

Because no, quiet is _not_ good. The truth is, he’s bored out of his bloody mind.

His days are always exactly the same. They all blend into each other until they become nothing more than unintelligible, juxtaposed events he can’t, for the life of him, put in any definite order. Was it Wednesday that he last scraped the big cauldron he uses for sleeping draughts, or was it last week? Was it Monday that a careless customer broke a vial of priceless snake venom or just yesterday?

Severus’ life has become a daunting, debilitating series of repetitions. Waking up. Making tea. Skimming the paper. Opening the shop. Engaging in meaningless chitchat with Ainsworth. Dealing personally with the more demanding patrons. Slicing, chopping, stirring, stoppering. Closing the shop. Having a disappointing dinner by himself. Reading a little before bed. Sleeping. Waking up. Making tea. Skimming the paper…

He can try to fool himself. He can repeat it over and over in his head like a mantra. This is good, Severus. _This is quiet and balanced and steady. This is calm and peaceful. You need this, after so many years of running, lying, and fearing for your life. After killing, fighting and losing. After reaching the edge of death. You need this. You’re enjoying this. This is calm and peaceful. This is your life now_.

But the truth is, it’s killing him. This calm, this peacefulness, it’s slowly, surely, quietly killing him.

Every morning when he opens his eyes, he wants to scream. He wants to yell and shout and rage until something happens. Until _anything_ happens.

An explosion in the middle of London. A nuclear blast across Britain. A world-wide apocalypse. Even a new dark wizard rising would be good, if only to give people _something_ to talk about besides Quidditch scores and international magical cooperation and the goddamn bloody weather.

Sometimes he even misses teaching.

Maybe he’s already dead. Maybe he didn’t survive the snake bite after all and now he’s just a ghost.

Maybe this is his own personal hell.

Severus sighs deeply, head still throbbing, and rests his elbows on the table, rubbing at his eyes wearily.

No wonder he got drunk last night.

He doesn’t even bother looking through the rest of the paper anymore, or even glancing at the headlines. It’s not like he can concentrate on much this morning anyway, not with the pain sparking behind his eyeballs. Surely nothing new or interesting is happening in the world. That pathetic daily crossword is the only reason he’s still subscribing. That and the mild entertainment provided by the dimwit who writes the agony aunt column. And the thing with crosswords is, the more you do, the better at them you get, the easier they get, and the less of a challenge they provide. Predictably, like with all the rest, they’re getting dull. Commonplace. Pointless.

He doesn’t quite have the appetite for breakfast, so he restrains from cooking anything – not that there’s anything here to cook in the first place – and sticks to tea. After draining his cup and putting it away in the sink, he finally makes his way down the narrow stairs leading into the shop. The sooner he gets his hands on a hangover potion, the better.

Downstairs is dark, deserted and quiet. And freezing. He waves his wand to cast a general warming spell on the room and is hit almost immediately with a wave of dizziness that threatens to knock him off his feet. Leaning heavily on the counter, head pounding painfully, he takes deep, long breaths and grabs a vial directly from the shelves near the old cash register. He gulps its contents avidly.

It should work at once, but it doesn’t.

Severus waits, puzzled, head still throbbing. He looks at the label. It’s the right potion – a neat little cure he’s developed himself, though he’s personally never had any use for it before. The brewing date, scrawled in his own handwriting underneath the bottle, confirms that he’s made this batch last week. It should still be good for another week or so. It can’t possibly have gone stale yet. Did he mess up? Either way, he’ll most likely have to pull everything from the shelves and mix a whole new batch. He can’t start selling ineffective potions or that’ll be the end of it.

Moodily, he grabs a migraine potion from an upper shelf and chugs it. It’s probably the next best thing. The headache lessens at once, and a minute later it’s mostly gone, leaving behind an unpleasant feeling of numbness around his temples.

Severus breathes in deeply, relishing the absence of pain.

There’s about a foot of accumulated snow outside. He goes to grab a spare cloak from the hook near the backroom, planning to head out and clear the doorstep before it’s time to open the shop, when the feel of something crushing under his boot stops him. He lifts his foot to see what he’s just stepped on.

It looks like one of those glass vials of the minuscule kind he uses to store the smallest, most fragile, often most valuable potions ingredients. It’s unclear what was inside it, however, because there’s nothing on the floor now but a small pile of sand-like shards and a tiny cork stopper. Severus frowns at it, wondering how it could have possibly ended up all the way here. He keeps these vials neatly ordered and safely tucked away in labelled drawers.

He pushes the door open to peer into the backroom. The sight that greets him makes his blood turn cold.

The laboratory is completely wrecked. The floor is littered with broken vials, overthrown cauldrons and spilled concoctions. Shelves are hanging askew from the walls. Drawers have been ripped out of their cabinets and flung about, the herbs and seeds they contained strewn across the room. Books, grimoires, and parchments have been hurled and ripped to pieces, stained with spilled ink. The small glass terrariums near the windows are smashed, their plants uprooted and lying pitifully in clumps of dirt on the floor.

Severus’ heart gives a dangerous lurch. He rushes to the back of the room, towards the large oak cabinets he keeps under at least five different locking spells, only to find them still closed and untouched.

Thank Merlin. There are enough volatile potions in there to eat through the floor, to blow up the house, to quarantine the whole alley.

A quick spell, cast in a panic, informs him that the wards are still up and unviolated. No one’s broken in during the night, but he knew that already. He would have felt it if the wards had been breached. He would have felt it the moment he woke up this morning. He would have felt it the second it happened and been wrenched from his sleep, however deeply he’d slept, however inebriated he’d been.

He has wards on the whole house, of course, including the shop and his flat. But this room, compared to all the rest, is even more heavily protected. So much so that anyone setting foot in here without his explicit permission would suffer the consequences. His potions are simply not to be meddled with.

This makes the situation all the more confusing.

Stumbling over the broken glass and scattered objects, Severus heads towards the desk near the window. He rips off the shutter that threatens to smack him in the face with the way it’s hanging off its last hinge and inspects the mess on the floor. The drawer where he keeps his personal notes has been yanked from its nook and is lying there with nails sticking out. His journal is next to it, soaked through with a clear, viscous substance that, from the smell alone, can only be slug mucus. He picks it up carefully and flips through the damp pages. Half of them have been ripped out, the rest is smeared with ink. All that remains of it – entries detailing his personal thoughts, lists of tasks and reminders, sketches he’s taken to drawing while waiting for potions to brew – is now an indecipherable mess.

He drops the notebook back on the floor and looks around again, equally furious and perplexed.

It’s hard to tell in all this chaos, but nothing appears to have been stolen. And that doesn’t make any sense. Why trash the laboratory without taking anything of value? And why leave the store untouched?

Could Covington be responsible?

That’s highly unlikely. They may have established a rivalry of some sort over the years, but it has yet to turn into something unhealthy. If anything, they keep each other on their toes. Severus has never really seen the man as a direct threat, only as an annoying contender whose sole objective seems to be degrading the prestige of their mutual profession.

If you want some cheap invigorating draught, you drop by Covington’s. If you need a rare ingredient, or some advice on which cauldron to use for brewing your own batch of experimental potions, or an efficient and fast-acting sleeping aid with none of the usual side-effects, you go to Mulpepper’s. It’s as simple as that.

They both have their regular patrons and their own popular brews. And as much as he dislikes the man, Severus must admit that part of him would be disappointed if Covington ever closed his shop. He’s come to enjoy taunting and ridiculing his fellow apothecary’s fad potions every time they happen to meet.

Besides, Covington is not nearly powerful enough to break through his wards and leave no trace. And he’s certainly not cunning enough to hire someone else to do it for him either.

Severus flings the lab window open and whistles sharply. Enlil lands on the sill seconds later, flapping snow everywhere, always eager for a delivery. It takes Severus less than a minute to find a reasonably usable piece of parchment on the floor and to scribble the note.

_Ainsworth – I was up late last night and had a slight brewing mishap. The laboratory is out of bounds for the time being, and I shall need a few days to restore it. As such, I am giving you the weekend off. Do not come snooping around, there are nasty fumes. I will see you on Monday morning as usual. And for the hundredth time, stop forwarding your mail to my address! – S.S._

He takes the black envelope from his pocket and hurriedly ties the note to it before handing it to the bird.

“Take this to Ainsworth and be quick about it,” he says shortly as the owl takes flight.

He then finds a bigger piece of parchment and jots down a few words before going back into the shop and hanging it at the front door, informing customers that, due to unforeseen circumstances, the shop will be closed for the weekend.

Financially, it’s certainly not ideal, but he’ll manage. The thought of going about as he would on a normal day is ridiculous. He needs some time to collect his thoughts and figure out what the bloody hell is happening to him. And he needs to start cleaning that mess.

Instead, he ends up spending quite some time just wandering the room, picking things up before sighing and putting them back down, or just moving them to a different spot in the wreckage. He simply doesn’t know where to start.

Maybe he should have asked Ainsworth to come over and help instead. But what would he tell her? How would he explain the state of this place? It looks more like a battlefield than a slight brewing mishap. No, on second thought, it’s better he deals with this on his own.

The problem is, he’s feeling groggy and weak and not nearly strong enough to fix it all with a grand cleaning spell. Even a few basic repair charms shot here and there in the worst corners leave him short of breath and leaning on furniture to keep steady. He feels physically and magically drained. The hangover potion should have taken care of that, but instead…

It dawns on him then.

Did _he_ do this? Did _he_ wreck his own lab last night, completely inebriated?

It’s the only plausible explanation, isn’t it? Severus trusts his own wards more than he trusts himself. And he hasn’t been drunk nearly enough times to know how he could react after imbibing so much scotch.

Maybe drunk Severus has taken it upon himself to send sober Severus a message by acting this way. _Enough is enough. I’ve had it with this routine, with this quietness. This meaninglessness. Find something worth living for or you’ll be seeing much more of me_.

He sits down heavily on a miraculously intact wooden stool and shuts his eyes against the white daylight.

How could he let this happen? Is he going mad? Is he slipping? After all this time, has it finally come to this?

Without wasting one more second, Severus gets to his feet and leaves the wrecked room. He dashes up to the flat, grabs his winter robe, a scarf and a pair of gloves, then he rushes back downstairs and slips out the back door and into the quiet alley.

He doesn’t know where he’s going, hasn’t though this through the slightest bit, but he doesn’t care. He just needs to get out of this place. He’ll deal with the mess later. For now, he can’t stand the sight of it. He needs to be anywhere but here.

Of course, he can’t Apparate in this state. If he can barely perform a simple cleaning charm, he’s likely to get splinched or end up half-embedded in a piece of wall. Instead, he heads to The Leaky Cauldron, first considering using the Floo there to visit Narcissa. But the thought is only a fleeting one. He’s immediately reminded that today is Saturday and there will be no speaking to her alone, as Lucius will surely be home as well. Suffice it to say, he’s the last person Severus wants to see this morning.

He may have distanced himself from the Dark Arts and rid himself of any thoughts of blood purity and world domination, he may have grovelled and redeemed himself in the eyes of wizarding society, but Lucius Malfoy remains a complete arse. He’s still very much the bully he always was, intent on putting others down to feel superior – even more so now, it seems, after his very public trial left him somewhat disgraced. He would no doubt prove incapable to offer any proper advice or support upon hearing of Severus’ predicament. He’s more likely to mock and embarrass.

And so, upon entering the pub, instead of heading for the fireplace, Severus walks straight through the room. Ignoring the innkeeper’s joyful greeting, he wrenches the front door open and disappears into Muggle London.

It’s not so quiet as Diagon this early in the morning, and the city noises are deafening compared to the stillness Severus has just left. A few passers-by throw furtive glances his way as he emerges from the pub, eying his outfit curiously. He shoots them a dark glare as he stalks away, going nowhere in particular, ignoring the other pedestrians, the families going about their weekend errands, the children scuffling in the newly fallen snow. As he walks, he lets his thoughts wander, trying to decide what to do, where to go. Whether or not he should seek advice and if so, from whom. He’s very much aware that the number of candidates is fairly restricted.

Before he realises he’s doing it, he finds himself heading towards King’s Cross and considering catching a train to Hogsmeade and heading up to the castle for a long chat with Minerva. She’s the most level-headed person he knows, and he considers her more than adequate to determine if he’s started losing his mind.

The station is packed, and it takes a while for a clear path to form, allowing him to cross over onto the wizarding platform. Fortunately, the train not being an extremely popular mode of transportation for wizards, it’s much quieter on the other side. Why suffer through hours of travelling when you can reach your destination in the blink of an eye by Apparating? Still, Severus concludes, there must be a considerable number of witches and wizards who rely on trains, as they haven’t yet become obsolete.

From his observation of those milling about this morning, he notes that these rare passengers consist of older folks and families with small children. Why anyone would want to be cooped up for hours on end in a train compartment with a bawling child is beyond him. However, he’s aware that Side-Along Apparition with young children is heavily discouraged. And the Floo Network has limitations when it comes to distance. And Portkey regulations have become a veritable bureaucratic nightmare. All things considered, they probably don’t have a choice, he realises as he watches a young mother moodily drag a hiccupping, snot-covered toddler behind her.

Pondering this further, Severus decides that other frequent train travellers must also include those with sensitive dispositions, Squibs or the otherwise magically-impaired, and those who remain without an Apparition license – the poor sods. There is also the matter of the intoxicated. And of those with simply too much time on their hands. Severus counts himself into this last category.

For him, it’s always been about the journey.

He’d never taken the train before that very first trip to Hogwarts, aged eleven. He’d never left Cokeworth, barely ever strayed from Spinner’s End and its dark labyrinth of brick alleys and permanently overcast sky, its smoke and its constant, ominous rumbling of machinery.

His mother had told him all about the school, of course. The grounds, the lake, the towers, the classrooms and hallways. The ghosts, the houses, the feasts. They were his bedtime stories, uttered softly in the dark, because the mere mention of magic, of a world beyond Spinner’s End, was quiet and careful, lest his father might overhear.

Severus had been dreaming of Hogwarts for years before it became his reality. And when the day finally came, it all began with the train ride.

He sat alone the whole time, just watching the world speed by swiftly, letting himself be transported to another place. A better place. A place where, he’d been assured, he would finally make friends. Where other children wouldn’t care if he looked or dressed slightly odd. A place where he would excel and fit in. Where he would feel safe, far from the troubles of home. Where he could eat his fill and sleep soundly, undisturbed by his father’s slurs and his mother’s sobs and all the shouting and the nightmares.

Even after a few years, when Hogwarts revealed itself as much different from what he’d been promised, when he remained lonely and unable to connect with his peers, Severus still appreciated the journey. He would spend the ride in solitude, watching the countryside fly by, fixing a point on the horizon until he couldn’t see it anymore, and then finding another one, and another one. He’d often wish the trip would never end, that the train would just keep going, speeding through the rolling green hills forever.

Now forty-four years old, Severus still longs for that feeling. He would like to find it again today, if only for a brief time.

He peers at the departures board indecisively.

There’s a train for Hogsmeade at one, but that’s not soon enough for him. There’s one to Sussex in forty-five minutes, but what would he do in Sussex? There’s one for Leeds, one for York, then one for Oxford. He considers Oxford for a moment, then notices there’s a train at ten bound for Cornwall.

“One ticket to Tinworth,” Severus tells the old, disgruntled wizard at the booth.

“One way or roundtrip?” comes the grumbled reply.

Severus hesitates. “Is there a trip back later today?”

The clerk fumbles through paper leaflets, peering at lists of tiny numbers through a foggy monocle while Severus waits. “Three, six, and nine o’clock,” he finally reveals, looking back at Severus expectantly.

“Very well. I’ll return on the six o’clock.”

The trip takes approximately five hours. If there’s no delaying, Severus will have a good three hours to wander around before catching the train home.

Once he’s purchased his ticket, he walks through the station, killing time until departure. He hasn’t been here since his Hogwarts days, when his mother would Apparate them both shortly before eleven o’clock, unwilling to be away from home for too long. There was never any time for wandering back then, and he’s never had a chance to explore King’s Cross before.

Along the platform are numerous kiosks selling magazines and newspapers, postcards and London paraphernalia. There is a florist and a tobacconist, as well as a barbershop and a cobbler. In a small shop that sells stationary, books, and souvenirs, Severus buys a new journal, as well as a novelty Muggle-style, never-run-out-of-ink pen. Even after browsing the entire shop at least three times, he still has almost an hour left.

Next door is a small pub, with ten or so tables, a few of them occupied. Half of them are booths crammed along a wall of dusty windows overlooking the platform. Severus sits in one of them and orders a cup of coffee.

“Quite a lot of snow we’ve had last night, isn’t it?” the witch who serves him remarks when she brings his drink.

“Indeed,” Severus replies blankly, not wanting to engage in conversation, especially not with a waitress determined to state the obvious.

“I don’t think I remember that much snow in London before,” she rambles on. “Not since I was a little girl anyway. Must be something unusual in the air,” she finishes with an enigmatic smile.

Severus only hums in reply before taking a long, burning sip of his coffee. He waits until she wanders off – finally understanding he’s not the sort of man for chitchat – to take out his new journal and start writing.

_I cannot begin to understand what has occurred. As much as I try to recall the events of yesterday, all my memory manages to reconstruct are wisps of recollections. Even the slightest attempt is comparable to travelling through a thick fog, unable to distinguish but the vaguest details of my surroundings. I seem to finally be spiralling down the path I have been trying to avoid all these years. Part of me knows it has always been inevitable and yet I cannot seem to–_

Severus stops writing abruptly, distracted by giggles coming from somewhere nearby. He turns to shoot a warning glare in the direction of the noise. The source is the two young witches huddled behind the counter, whispering frantically and throwing numerous glances into the dining room. One of them is the tall, chatty brunette with oversized glasses who brought Severus his coffee. The other waitress, a blonde girl with her hair tied up in an elaborate bun, is blushing bright red as she fiercely mutters to her friend.

He scans the pub for the cause of this disturbance, looking at the other patrons for the first time. There’s an older gentleman wearing a large, ancient-looking pointed hat. And two middle-aged women sitting in a corner, arguing vehemently, though Severus can’t hear what they’re saying.

A few tables away, facing him, Severus finds the indubitable reason for all this racket.

A young man, presumably in his early twenties, is sitting by himself with his own cup of coffee. One elbow leaning on the table, chin propped up on his hand, he’s looking absently at the people walking by on the platform. When another fit of giggles overtakes the two waitresses, the boy sighs deeply, his features hardening in annoyance. He doesn’t budge though, nor does he turn at the noise. It’s only when a young couple walks by outside the pub, hand in hand, that he shifts slightly to follow them with his gaze. He watches until they disappear out of sight and then turns his head again, scanning the platform in boredom.

There’s something about him. All Severus can see is his profiled face, and it’s difficult to understand, but there’s something in his posture, in his demeanour, that’s impossible to ignore. There is a sadness there. A sort of loneliness.

Yes, loneliness.

It’s obvious now that Severus has a name for it. It’s in the hunch of the boy’s shoulders, in the soft indifference of his gaze. In the undefined patterns his fingers trace on the tabletop. In the way he’s completely ignoring his drink… Possibly because even the heat of it can’t warm the shivering thing inside his chest?

From an outsider’s point of view, or from the point of view of someone unfamiliar with this feeling, with this state of being, unfamiliar with the careful, distant observation of strangers, it could almost look like the boy is waiting. But Severus instinctively knows he isn’t. Not really. Well, maybe he is waiting, in a way. But maybe he doesn’t even know what he’s waiting for.

Perhaps, like Severus, he’s just waiting for something to happen, for something to _matter_.

The blonde waitress is walking over to his table now, determined, but so visibly nervous Severus is almost tempted to feel sorry for her. Almost. The boy’s expression tightens when he senses her arrival, and he turns to her slowly, resigned. Severus watches as she talks, though he can’t hear her words, and the boy shakes his head, looking uncomfortable. Severus tries to read his lips, but whatever the boy says in response remains incomprehensible. The girl hesitates for a moment, then she nods and walks swiftly back to the counter, surely to resume her unabashed gossiping.

Severus watches all this carefully, half turned to his journal, just raising his eyes slightly so as not to be caught ogling.

Once the waitress is gone, the boy rubs at his face tiredly and starts rummaging into his robe. He’s wearing a heavy winter robe, Severus notes, despite being indoors, despite the roaring fireplace flaring up in the cramped little pub. A moment later, he takes out a small flask and pours quite a large amount of liquid into his coffee before slipping the bottle away and out of sight. Then, with a graceful twirl of his finger over the cup, he gives the mixture a stir before taking a long sip of it.

Leaving his previous entry unfinished, Severus turns the journal page.

 _What must it be like_ , he writes on a blank one, _to be so beautiful that others barely deem necessary to hide their admiration?_

When he looks up again, the boy has returned to his observation of the platform, both hands now wrapped tightly around the fuming mug on the table. Once again, he’s exuding this aura of loneliness, this tangible impression of being lost.

Something in Severus’ chest tightens like a fist.

The boy is beautiful indeed. Now that the thought has crossed his mind, Severus can’t rid himself of it. He wants to ignore all this foolishness and return to his writing, but he can’t tear his eyes away.

Dark, tousled hair. A long, pale throat. The defined curve of a cheekbone.

He cannot stop himself. He starts drawing swiftly, taking advantage of the boy’s immobility to capture the moment. Sneaking brief glances every now and then, he sketches a rough outline. The new pen glides easily on the thick journal paper and soon enough, as more and more lines are added, defining lights and shadows, the black ink starts giving shape to a figure, until Severus is left with a portrait as close to the original as it’s possible to achieve from this distance.

When he raises his head one last time to polish the details, the boy is looking straight at him.

Severus remains impassable, intent on not letting his uneasiness at being caught show on his face.

He’s expecting his indiscretion to be met with a scowl or a reproachful glance. Or, very possibly, a look of anger or disgust. He’s prepared for it. He would feel the same way if he caught a stranger staring at him like this.

Instead, the boy holds his gaze, and then all his features seem to soften. Slowly, the look of boredom and loneliness vanishes, the frown dissipates, and then the corner of his mouth curves, almost imperceptibly. But before Severus can find it in him to react in any way, before he can fully appreciate the sight of that lovely face in full display, the boy turns back towards the window.

Short of breath, Severus forces his attention back to the page. His hand shaking slightly, he adds a few lines to the drawing, where a strand of dark hair curls near the boy’s temple. His face feels warm and his heart is thudding in his chest. He feels ready to dissolve in embarrassment and shock. And something else, maybe…

The boy’s eyes are vibrant green. The colour of the Killing Curse.

Severus can’t help but think this is appropriate somehow.

 _Why do I find myself fancying any man who gives me the slightest bit of attention?_ he scrawls underneath the sketch after it’s done.

Before he can ridicule himself any further, Severus closes the journal and drains his coffee. Then he slaps a few sickles on the table, and without taking one last glance at the boy, hurriedly leaves the pub.

There’s still quite a while until his train arrives, and he sits on a bench at one end of the platform to wait. As far away from the pub as possible. On a new page of the journal, he starts drawing again. The platform, the store fronts, the footbridge over the tracks, meticulously tracing the perspective lines. He doesn’t draw the people, however. None of them stay still long enough for him to capture. Not like that boy earlier…

Severus’ thoughts stray back to him. Even as he concentrates on the pattern of the brick walls and tries to capture the light coming in through the glass ceiling of the station, his mind is elsewhere. And before he realises he’s doing it, he’s stopped sketching and has turned the page to look back at the drawing.

It’s quite good. To be completely frank, Severus is proud of it. He doesn’t draw people very often. Firstly, because he’s rarely in the presence of someone he would bother drawing, but also because he finds it difficult. He can draw the lines, yes, and the features, and do the shading perfectly. But the essence of a person is the hardest part. Even here, something is missing.

It’s a good sketch, but it feels incomplete. Lacking. Maybe he shouldn’t have left the pub so suddenly. Whatever is missing, maybe he could have managed to capture it if he’d stayed just a bit longer, if he’d had just a few more glimpses.

Grudgingly, Severus must admit that the drawing really doesn’t do the boy justice.

He scoffs softly and snaps the journal shut.

He simply must stop referring to the stranger as the _boy_. He looked young, yes, but no _boy_ has ever held Severus’ gaze that way before. Like he knew exactly what went on in his mind. Like he knew exactly how unsettled, though stone-faced, Severus was the instant their eyes met. How perturbed he was by the greenness of them.

For those few seconds, the boy’s eyes pierced right through him like they knew him.

The gaze they shared, however brief, felt so practised. Almost familiar.

One stare like a thousand others before it. Like old friends meeting eyes across a crowded room. Easy. Accustomed.

 _Intimate_.

And right after, that unexpected softness on the boy’s face. Severus will be damned if anyone has ever looked at him that way before in his entire life.

And then that look, just before he turned away. That look Severus only briefly managed to catch…

If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear that right before he turned his head, the boy had been blushing.

He looked no older than twenty-five. Could he be a former student?

No, certainly not. Severus would never forget eyes like that. _Avada Kedavra_ green. Striking enough to stop any man in his tracks, even the less observant. They would stand out like beacons in the darkness of his old classroom.

If he hasn’t attended Hogwarts, then he must have been home-schooled.

Or maybe he’s simply foreign. He certainly doesn’t look like he belongs here, in the frigid, monotone, commonplace world of dreary, January London.

A creature from another world…

Severus realises he’s been examining the drawing once more. With a quiet groan of embarrassment, he snaps the book shut again.

He’s been hiding away in his lab for too long if the first beautiful face he sees is enough to turn his head.

Luckily for him, his train arrives shortly after and he boards it quickly, eager to be elsewhere.

It’s considerably more ancient than the Hogwarts Express, with much wider compartments, each holding a dozen seats, separated by oak-panelled walls and a heavy glass door. The windows are old and dusty, with a latch on each, allowing them to be opened. Severus imagines it must be nice in the summer, when the train is speeding through the hills or along the coast, to open one and breathe in the fresh air. On each side, the seats are old brown leather, large enough for two people, with metal luggage racks overhead. In each compartment, an elaborate candelabra hangs from the ceiling, unlit at this hour.

There’s no assigned seat number on Severus’ ticket. He picks the very last seat in the compartment, on the left side, and settles near the window, watching the other passengers board. There aren’t too many of them. Not at this end of the train, at least. He’s only counted five carriages when the train entered the station. With any luck, it won’t pick up too many people before it reaches Tinworth. A crowded, noisy trip is the last thing he wants.

He puts on his best cold, unapproachable expression, hoping to dissuade anyone from trying to engage in conversation.

By the time the controller comes by to check his ticket, there’s only six other passengers sitting in Severus’ compartment. The closest to him, an old lady who’s already piled a stack of books on the seat next to her, probably won’t bother him much.

As the train departs, Severus discovers a small foldable table near his armrest and lifts it, placing his journal and pen on top. He doesn’t write though, only watches in silence as the train leaves London, lost in the contemplation of the snowy landscape.

After a while, he rests his head back against the seat. And, as the train picks up speed and starts heading east, he drifts into sleep.

_Somewhere in the near distance, his father is shouting._

_Severus, whose fight or flight instinct is quite developed for a seven-year-old, has wasted no time and belted towards his bedroom the second the glass exploded. But in his constant drunken stupor, Tobias Snape is slow to react. While his son sprang into action, determined to put as much distance between them as quickly as possible and take cover, he sat there, stunned and confused._

_But he’s reacting now alright._

_In the pitch black of his bedroom closet, Severus presses his small body as hard as he can into the back wall, hugging his knees to his chest._

_“You better come back here boy! NOW!”_

_Fear flares up behind his eyes, lightning bolts of terror in the darkness. He’s shaking, breath coming out in short bursts, and his throat tightens around them painfully as panic starts to set in._

_But amongst it all, amongst the fear and the dread of imminent punishment, there is something else. A spark of excitement and pride._

_He’s done magic again._

_His mother is intervening now. He can hear her protests, her attempts to reason with his father, to appease him. It was an accident, she insists. It’s normal at this age, to be expected even. It wasn’t meant as a threat, it was simply unstable magic that he’s yet too young to–_

_There is the sound of struggling, then a loud thud followed by a pained whimper, and his mother is quiet._

_All he can hear after that are the heavy footsteps. Then comes the sound of the doorknob being violently rattled, then brutal pounding on the bedroom door. The old chair Severus has propped up against it – back firmly wedged under the handle, like he’s seen on the telly – is struggling to hold on, legs scraping against the floor, ready to give and let the storm in._

_“SEVERUS!” comes the bellowing voice, deafening in its rage and unbearably loud even through two layers of closed doors._

_Severus startles so violently that he chokes on his own breath and the tears that were threatening to fall come flooding down his face. He hugs his body tighter still, desperate to make himself smaller, to disappear, pressing his bony back so hard into the wall that the knobs of his spine burn with pain._

_The pounding on the bedroom door grows even more savage, the walls of the closet shaking under the assault._

_“You little SHIT!” his father shouts. “OPEN THIS BLOODY DOOR!”_

_“I’m sorry…” Severus whines out through the sobs, but there’s no way his father could hear him with all the racket – not that he would even care about any form of apology if he did. “I didn’t… mean to…” he hiccups._

_The bedroom door finally gives, and the chair is sent hurtling across the room. There is silence, just for a moment, and then Severus gasps in panic, raising his arms to protect himself at the unmistakable sound of his father darting for the closet._

_Just as the door is yanked open though, everything stops. There is only the sound of his panicked breaths and the loud pounding of his heart._

_“It’s okay, Sev,” a voice says softly, right into his ear, as a warm hand closes around his own. “He can’t hurt you. It’s just a memory.”_

He wakes to bright light, startling after the darkness of the dream.

The train is rushing through the countryside.

Careful to keep his head turned away from the other passengers, so that they don’t notice his distress as he tries to shake the dream off and steady his breathing, Severus watches the landscape speeding by. Snow flares up in misty clouds along the tracks, the flakes shining like silver dust. Though the sun is nowhere to be seen, the sky all around is blindingly white. As beautiful as it is, he turns away, blinking to keep his eyes from tearing up.

The old lady sitting across the aisle has spread her books around on the seat and unfolded a roll of parchment on the small table. She is struggling to write without making a mess of her ink pot. Noticing he’s awake and looking at her, she glances at him briefly and nods with a slight, polite curl of her lip before going back to her scribbling.

He means to ask her how long it’s been since they’ve left London, but he decides not to bother her, lest she takes it as an invitation to strike up a conversation.

Breathing more easily now, he rests his head back on the seat and closes his eyes again, pondering the dream.

It’s one of the recurring ones, the ones he can expect to haunt him every few nights, to wake him up in sweat, gasping for air. It always takes him a few seconds to recover, to remember that he’s not a little boy anymore, that his father is long dead and rotting in the ground somewhere, that Spinner’s End has been sold and is making other people miserable now. That none of that can hurt him.

He’s grown used to this one, of the day he took the most painful beating of his life. Of the day, sitting at the dinner table, he got so nervous under his father’s dark, reproachful glare that he made the glass shatter in the man’s grip. Miraculously, he always manages to wake himself up before the worse part. His father ripping out his belt and beating him bloody with it, the buckle slicing his skin open with each violent strike.

All of it is repetitive and expected. Familiar territory, old wounds and whatnot. Except for one detail.

The voice in the darkness. The voice and the warm hand. _That_ was never there.

Severus frowns, eyes still closed. There is warm light caressing the side of his face now, and he can see the brightness as a golden red glow through his lids.

His dreams are generally just repetitions of events that really happened, events he’d rather forget and thought he had managed to wipe from his memory, or at least bury deeply enough that they shouldn’t trouble him anymore, but that return when he’s sleeping, when his mind is free to roam, unhindered, in its own confines. Nothing extravagant or particularly bizarre ever happens, only the same persistent, unsettling memories.

He was never of the imaginative type either, so Severus cannot for the life of him comprehend how he could have found it in himself, even in his subconscious, to add such an odd detail to this particular dream.

It summons to mind the fleeting memory from this morning and a burning lump forms in his throat at the thought. He remembers nothing of it now, only the longing and the emptiness it has left behind.

Opening his eyes again, determined to put all this out of his head, all thoughts of soft voices and warm hands and human contact, Severus opens the journal to a new page, carefully avoiding looking at the drawings he’s made earlier. At one of them.

 _On a whim, I have decided to head to Tinworth today. I cannot explain why. I am not an impulsive person. Or am I?_ _I do not know what sort of person I am. I feel strangely outside of myself. An emptiness has taken shape in the pit of my stomach, something at once painful and numb. And I know it is loneliness I feel. It has always been there, though I normally choose to ignore it and most often manage it. I feel it strongly today._ _Perhaps I should try to meet someone._

He scoffs softly, putting the pen down.

As if _that_ has any chance of happening. How can he meet someone when he’s incapable of being even slightly pleasant to anyone he encounters, let alone to someone he finds himself attracted to?

 _I know why you’re acting this way_ , Minerva had once told him, years ago, shortly after he’d begun teaching. Having just witnessed him rudely turn down an invitation for drinks by some of his new colleagues, she’d looked at him over her glasses and spoken in her usual tone of gentle firmness. _Because you think you can’t get hurt if you don’t let anyone close enough_.

He goes to shut the journal in frustration but finds himself turning the page instead. Back to the drawing again.

In another world, a world where he is not afraid, where he is brave and not broken, a world in which he exudes confidence and charm, Severus would have walked up to that boy.

He tries to picture it in his mind’s eye. He tries to imagine this hypothetical self of his standing from his table and approaching this beautiful, lonely creature. _May I join you?_ he’d ask, and get an unguarded stare in return, a look of pleased surprise, which no one has ever bestowed upon him before though he’s always craved it, and then an eager nod. And then a smile.

Yes, the boy would definitely smile. He looked the sort of person who smiles easily and whose face lights up with it. The sort of person who possesses a real smile, nothing like the pained grimace Severus can only manage.

He turns his head to see the old lady watching him, and he’s suddenly aware of how he must look. Dreamily staring at a sketch, eyes surely filled with longing, fingers caressing the corner of the page. She seems about to ask something, a look of fondness to her face, but he cuts her off by snapping the journal shut with a dark glare and turning away towards the window.

 _Get a hold of yourself, Severus!_ he thinks for the second time that day as he watches the horizon. Everything is so white he can’t tell where the snow ends and where the sky begins.

He sits in silence for the remainder of the trip, staring at the landscape. Every once in a while, he reaches for the journal but stops himself before finally slipping it back into his robe, out of sight. When the train finally stops in front of the small station in Tinworth, the sky is grey and the wind chilling.

He stands on the platform for a little while, looking around, watching the passengers descend and head inside the station or get greeted by loved ones. There’s more of them than he thought, probably all crammed in the front compartments. The old lady from across the aisle embraces a younger man, presumably her son. He takes from her the bag of heavy books and they walk away slowly, his arm around her thin shoulders.

Severus enters the station and heads for the loo first, where he stares intently at his tired face in the mirror. Then he crosses over to the Muggle side and orders a disappointing sandwich from a shop. He watches the news on the small telly while he eats.

Even for the Muggles there’s nothing of note happening. Record snow, record cold, bad road conditions. A man from Devon who fell through the ice in a pond and was rescued by a good Samaritan passing by.

He doesn’t dawdle about. As soon as he’s finished eating, he heads out to search for the beach.

He hasn’t chosen this destination on a whim. Not exactly. He’s been here before, nearly two years ago. On the fifth anniversary of the end of the war. The Weasleys, of all people, had invited him, and he’d flooed over to their cottage in the late afternoon, while the party was already in full swing. He’d taken part in the necessary catching-up chitchat and then mostly wandered around the beach on his own, doing his best to avoid the playing children dragging around Muggle kites or chasing a dog near the waves.

It had been too cold for swimming then, in early May, and everyone was bundled up against the Cornwall wind. There were familiar faces, people like him who’d wanted to avoid the official ceremony at Hogwarts, choosing to turn the day into a celebration rather than another occasion to mourn their dead a fifth year in a row. Later in the day, when the sun had set and the wind was milder, they had built a giant bonfire on the beach and gathered around with hot drinks and stories.

It takes a little while to find the same beach again. The landmarks are scarce along the coast, and the cottages sparse, but the Weasleys’ is easy enough to recognise once you’ve spotted it, with its twin chimneys and skylighted windows. To the well-trained eye, it glimmers with magic, and Severus suspects it might look completely different to the Muggles who live nearby. He doesn’t approach it though. It’s probably vacant this time of year, but he doesn’t want to risk it.

He walks along the water, turning the collar of his winter robe up to protect as much of his skin from the wind as possible. The sea is grey and furious, spitting out foam with every rolling wave.

It’s bloody freezing on this beach.

_Tinworth in January. Brilliant idea, Severus._

If the wind wasn’t so unforgiving, he’d take out his journal and try to draw the landscape. It’s hostile, yes, but beautiful at once, and he longs to sketch the dark clouds and try to capture the movements of the tide. But he doesn’t dare take his hands out of his pockets, let alone remove his gloves to properly hold the pen.

It’s when he turns to see how far he’s walked that he notices a silhouette in the distance. A windswept, darkly clad shape, far away on the beach.

For a brief moment, he has the absolute certainty that someone’s followed him all the way here, but then he shakes the thought away as an impulsive notion left over from his days as a spy. There is no way someone could have followed him without his knowledge.

It’s just another wandering soul, surely. Still, how unexpected in this weather.

He turns and keeps walking in the direction he was headed, away from the distant figure. There’s a house not very far, obviously Muggle, blue with white shutters, and he finds himself walking towards it. It’s closed for the winter, the shutters securely locked. There’s a large wooden porch all around it, stairs leading down into the sand, and French doors upstairs, with a balcony that overlooks the sea.

Severus climbs onto the porch and approaches one of the downstairs windows, trying to peer through the shutters. He can’t see much inside except for dark shapes that must be furniture covered in cloth.

It all looks so familiar, this house, its shade of blue, the surrounding porch and the way the wood planks creak under his footsteps.

He doesn’t remember wandering this far off the first time he was here. Maybe he’s just seen this house in the distance and that’s why it looks so familiar now.

He walks around the porch to the front of the house and sits on a bench there, protected from the wind. He can’t see the ocean from this side, but he can hear it rushing onto the beach behind the house, the waves crashing on the shore. He shuts his eyes, gathering his robe closer around his body, shivering now, but not entirely with the cold.

He wonders about the people who live in this house. Who they are, what they do, where they are now. How they can leave such a place. How they can lock it away and leave it forgotten, even in this weather, in this season. If _he_ had a house like this, in a place like this, he would never leave. He would spend all winter looking out at the roaring sea and listening to the wind.

A quick _Tempus_ charm informs him that more time has passed than he thought, and he decides he should head back to the station if he doesn’t want to end up stuck in Cornwall until the nine o’clock train. As much as he wants to avoid it, he will have to return to London eventually, and deal with the mess he’s left in the backroom. The sun is already starting to set.

He walks down the long driveway of the house and along the winding road that leads to the main street, then he keeps walking through the village until he reaches the station. There, he buys a hot tea in a paper cup and waits on the platform instead of taking refuge inside. He’s alone, and then, suddenly, he’s not alone anymore.

When he turns his head to look in the direction the train will come from, he sees someone else standing a short distance away. A slender figure in a dark winter robe.

Severus looks away instantly, turning to face in the opposite direction. His heart gives a resounding thud inside his chest.

It’s him. The boy from the pub. The one from the drawing. And the familiarity of his silhouette confirms something Severus has maybe been suspecting without being aware of it.

It was him on the beach earlier. It was _him_.

Severus turns to take another look, unable to stop himself, and finds him looking his way. The boy nods his head, though he’s too far away for Severus to tell what sort of expression could possibly be on his face. Severus nods back uncomfortably, hoping against hope that he’s not blushing, though surely from this distance the boy wouldn’t be able to tell either.

Casually, Severus turns to the other side, towards the station, facing away from the tracks, in a way he hopes seems nonchalant, as if he’s simply looking around in complete indifference. Maybe he’s hoping to give the impression of not having recognised the boy at all. When he looks the length of the platform again, hands firmly lodged in his pockets in an impassive gesture, he finds the boy has turned to this side as well, exactly as he’s done, and their eyes meet instantly.

Severus watches as he laughs, and he can’t stop his own lips from curving into a smile before he catches himself and turns to face the other way again. When he looks back, the boy has moved too, but he’s looking away from him now, and towards the spot where the tracks curve and disappear through the trees. He tilts his head against the wind, and with a gloved hand, pushes his hair to the side in an effort to clear his eyes. Severus’ chest fills with warmth at the sight.

The train is not the same as the one he’s taken earlier. Or maybe it’s just the compartment that’s different. The wooden doors and luggage racks and candelabras, now lit, are the same, and the seats are the same leather as well, but here they face each other, arranged around a larger table, in a series of four-seater booths. Severus makes sure to look especially unapproachable as he picks an empty one, and he must do a good job of it because he’s still sitting by himself when the train departs.

He looks around carefully, peeking over the seats and along the aisle to see if the boy is anywhere nearby. Severus lost sight of him when passengers started coming out of the station to board, and now he wishes he’d kept a closer eye on him. He has finally concluded that the boy has simply moved further along the train and is probably sitting in another area when he suddenly spots him sitting farther away in the compartment, near the doors leading to the next. He’s taken a seat along the aisle, facing Severus, and is resting his head back, eyes closed. His hands, now ungloved, are folded onto his lap.

Severus stares at him for a few seconds then turns away as if burned, sliding along his seat towards the window and away from view. He forces himself to remain there and look outside as the train leaves the station. He doesn’t move again until the controller comes to check his ticket, and then he resumes his contemplation of the scenery. Soon though, the sun has set completely, and he can’t make out the landscape anymore.

He takes the journal out of his pocket and uncaps the pen, ready to write, but there are no words now. His thoughts are jumbled and out of order. He couldn’t possibly form any of them into sentences. Before he knows it, he’s sliding along the seat towards the aisle and taking a quick peek in the boy’s direction.

He’s still sitting in the same spot as before, head back and eyes closed, but his face is tilted slightly towards the aisle. He looks to be asleep. Or he’s trying to be.

Severus starts drawing again, taking greater care now that he can be more discreet about it, now that his chances to be noticed are slimmer. Of course, he might be noticed still – the boy only has to open his eyes, and he’s sure to see him. But Severus finds that the element of urgency is part of the thrill.

The boy is further away than he was in the pub, but the lights in the train are brighter and the angle is different. Whereas earlier his face was half turned away, Severus is now offered a perfectly clear view of it. The collar of his robe is unbuttoned now that he’s out of the chilling wind, and Severus feels warmth spread through his guts at the sight of that white throat, so pale against the dark fabric around it. The boy’s hair is messy from the wind, curling every which way. On anyone else Severus would find it ridiculous, but somehow, this boy… it suits him. Gives him a sort of wildness, makes him strangely alluring. Severus wishes he had a charcoal pencil with him, to better soften the lines and smoothen the shadows, but he makes do with the pen anyway.

When he finishes the drawing, the boy hasn’t moved an inch. If he wasn’t asleep before, he must be by now. Severus has to force himself to slide over towards the window and stop staring at him. He shuts the journal but leaves it on the table, within reach, and looks outside, trying to make out the snow-covered shapes in the dark, sometimes glimpsing at lights in the distance. But mostly, all he can see is his own face reflected back at him on the glass, and the bright interior of the train in the background.

“Hi,” a voice says next to him.

Severus doesn’t remember ever being speechless in his life before, even at the most unexpected moments, but as he turns to find the boy standing there, next to his booth, staring down at him, he can only stare back, at a complete loss for words. And he hopes his face doesn’t show any of the helplessness he feels deep inside.

Something like a spark of pain erupts in his chest as his eyes take in the boy’s face for the first time up close. He’s even more beautiful than Severus thought.

“Pardon?” he finally says, in what he hopes is a confused, indifferent tone.

The boy’s lips curl slightly, and there’s a hint of laughter in his eyes. “I just said hi.”

“Oh. Hello,” Severus replies smoothly, but he knows with near certainty that the boy has seen right through his little attempt at nonchalance.

And then, as if the chain of events wasn’t already far enough out of his control, the boy is suddenly sliding onto the seat in front of him. Severus feels all the air leave his lungs at the sight. The boy says nothing for a moment, only considering him with those clear green eyes of his. And then, of all things, he grins.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he finally declares, not at all apologetically.

“I’m not startled,” Severus says bluntly. He can hear the defensiveness in his own voice and immediately regrets the words.

The boy bites his lip and seems to stifle a laugh. “Okay,” he says, nodding. “Good, then.”

He folds his hands on the table, then unfolds them, taps the wooden surface with his fingers in a gesture that might betray nerves, but it’s difficult to tell because he’s still holding Severus’ gaze so goddamn steadily.

When he speaks again, it is curiously, leaning over in a secretive way. “You were drawing me. Just now. And earlier, too, at King’s Cross.”

Severus’ first instinct is to deny the whole thing and to snap at the boy to leave him alone. He cannot stand to be stared at this way any longer. He cannot stand to be examined and read so clearly, to be put on the spot like this by a stranger. But it wasn’t a question. And of course, denying it would be futile. It’s his own fault if he was caught. He should have been more careful if he didn’t want to be confronted about it.

“Yes,” he admits, keeping his face impassive. Then he thinks maybe he should summon up an apology. Maybe that’s what the boy was expecting when he walked over here. “If that made you uncomfortable, I–”

“It didn’t,” the boy interrupts. “That’s not what I meant. I was just curious. Can I see?”

Severus can’t help the scoff that escapes his mouth, and the boy grins again at witnessing his embarrassment openly.

“I would rather not,” Severus says, shaking his head, unconsciously pressing both his hands palms-down on top of the journal. “I never show anyone–”

“Oh, _please_ ,” the boy retorts, rolling his eyes. “Just a glimpse. It’s only fair, isn’t it? I’m the model, surely I have some sort of right on whatever’s in there.”

Severus isn’t sure why he hasn’t yet snapped at the boy to leave him alone and go the hell back to his seat. And he doesn’t understand how he can be so easily subdued. Maybe it’s those bloody eyes. Or the fact that no one this boy’s age has ever spoken to him with such confidence before, has ever looked at him with such fearlessness before. Everyone knows you don’t mess with Severus Snape, the great dungeon bat, who’s likely to jinx you on the spot. But here this boy is, sitting in front of him with his windswept hair and his gorgeous face and laughter in his eyes.

Before he knows it, Severus is opening the journal to that last page, to the drawing he’s just finished moments before. And he turns it around on the table for the boy to see, making sure to hold on to the notebook just in case there is an attempt to take it from his hands. He _will_ die of mortification if the boy ever glimpses at the first drawing, and at the words he’s scribbled on the page.

But the boy makes no move to reach for the book. He only leans over it, and Severus watches his face as he examines the drawing closely. He looks at it for a long moment, so long that Severus starts to regret showing him at all.

When the verdict finally comes, it is a soft breath past the boy’s lips. “Wow.” Then he looks at the page some more, silently. “You’re very talented,” he concludes. “I don’t look that good, though. You took liberties–”

“I certainly did _not_.” Severus pulls the notebook back and shuts it again before he realises the boy probably took his offended reply as a compliment.

And indeed, when he raises his eyes, the boy is smiling widely at him.

He was right about the smile. It lights up the boy’s eyes, and they shine even more brightly under the lights of the old candelabra.

“You heading back to London?” he asks Severus.

“Yes.”

“So am I.”

“Yes,” Severus repeats, his mouth terribly dry.

There is a moment of silence between them, and Severus is suddenly conscious of how fast his own heart is beating. The boy is looking at him intently now, searching his face for something.

“I’m sorry, but I just have to ask,” he finally declares, still peering closely at Severus. “Do I know you?”

Severus’ reply is decisive. “I doubt it.”

The boy shakes his head. “You look very familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. We must have met before.”

“I _strongly_ doubt it,” Severus repeats.

But the boy doesn’t relent. “Do you ever go to the Ministry?”

Severus snorts. “Never. I do my best to avoid it.”

The boy smirks at his snarky tone. “Most people do, I suppose,” he admits with a shrug.

It’s Severus’ turn to be curious. “Why are you asking?”

“Well, I work there. I thought maybe that’s where I’ve seen you.”

Severus shakes his head and looks away, finally unable to look into the green eyes any longer. He grabs the journal and slips it into his pocket, out of sight. He’s still terribly afraid that the boy will just pick it up to look at the other drawing.

“I think I would remember you,” he tells the boy. Then, looking back at him, he finds himself asking, before he can stop it, “What do you do at the Ministry?”

The boy looks at him silently for a time, as if taken aback by the question. There’s some disbelief in his eyes, something suspicious, as if he feels Severus is taking the piss somehow. “I’m an Auror,” he says somewhat blankly, like this is completely obvious.

Confused by the tone, Severus looks at him closely, directing his gaze to the robe he’s wearing. It’s not an Auror’s robe, as far as he can tell. It’s an expensive-looking winter robe, the inside lined with soft black fur.

“Interesting,” he comments.

The boy shakes his head, a smile forming on his lips, small but charming nonetheless. “You don’t have to pretend, you know.”

Severus frowns. “I’m not pretending. It _is_ interesting work. For some people. Aurors are necessary.”

The boy chuckles. “No, I mean you don’t have to pretend you don’t know who I am,” he adds, voice softer now, and strangely, Severus detects a hint of disappointment in the words.

He stares at the boy for a long moment, searchingly. “I’m not pretending,” he repeats. “As I said before, we’ve never met. I would remember if I’d seen you before. I remember _everything_ ,” he finishes, maybe a bit more rudely than he meant to.

“Are you from London?” the boy inquires then. He’s not grinning or suspicious anymore, but his eyes are wider now, with surprise. He looks pleased somehow.

“Not originally, no. Though I’ve lived there seven years now.”

“I’m Harry Potter,” the boy says then, slowly, as if this is a revelation of some sort, and he’s expecting Severus to react badly to it.

“And I’m Severus Snape,” he reveals, hiding his confusion at what is going on.

If someone should expect to be taken aback by announcing his identity, it’s _him_ , not this boy, not this… Harry. And considering he’s just introduced himself to a beautiful young Auror as a former Death Eater, Severus suddenly realises that maybe he shouldn’t have revealed his name at all.

And what if he’s mistaken? What if this boy _is_ a former student of his? A former student who, for Merlin only knows what reason, he has forgotten all about, and who has forgotten all about the dungeon bat. Then Severus has just gone and reminded him. But then again, the boy would have recognised him. Severus hasn’t really changed that much in seven years.

But there is no disgust or rage or surprise on Harry’s face. Instead, he just lets out a small huff of breath, a light sound of disbelief. And next second, he’s smiling again and leaning forward.

“And what do you do, Severus?”

Severus swallows around the dry knot in his throat. Has anyone else looked at him this way before? Surely not. Harry is eager to know, genuinely interested. He seems to be enjoying the conversation, enjoying Severus’ company.

That’s an unusual turn of events if there ever was one.

“I own an apothecary shop in Diagon Alley.”

Harry perks up. “Oh! Is it Covington’s?” But his joy is short-lived when he sees the scowl Severus feels forming on his own face.

“It most certainly is not!” Severus snaps. “It’s Mulpepper’s. And it’s been around far longer than Covington’s, and it is leagues better than that brainless twit’s–”

“I’m sorry,” Harry interrupts, wincing and raising his hands in a peaceful gesture. “Please don’t be mad. I’m sorry I’ve never heard about your shop, but I don’t go out shopping much,” he explains. “I tend to order whatever I can by owl. Does your shop take owl orders?” he asks carefully.

Severus scoffs. “It doesn’t, and it never will. Travel by owl can damage and alter potions. You might as well throw the vials right through the damn Floo.”

Harry looks like he wants to laugh, but he doesn’t. “What about spells? Surely there are some spells that can protect–”

“It’s much too complicated for someone like you to understand, and I don’t care to spend hours explaining the specifics, as they would surely go directly over your head,” Severus finally says, exasperated. “Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

Harry shakes his head, chuckling lightly, and Severus finds himself completely disarmed. He’s basically just called the boy stupid, but he’s completely unaffected. Instead he says, gently, “Obviously that’s a sore spot for you. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m sorry.”

“That’s not a… Well… I don’t…” Severus manages before he loses all train of thought and realises he’s actually embarrassed by his little outburst.

The boy laughs openly now, but not in a mocking way. His eyes have fondness in their gaze. “You’re funny,” he tells Severus after a while.

“I assure you I’m not.”

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” Harry says kindly. “I wish everyone was as passionate about what they do.”

Severus looks away at the compliment, unsettled. How is it he hasn’t hexed the boy yet? How can he just let someone talk to him this way? Because he simply doesn’t know how to deal with this situation. Because no one has _ever_ talked to him this way before…

When he looks at Harry again, the boy’s eyes have softened. “I was wondering if you’d like to have a drink with me. When we get back to London,” Harry says, and maybe he’s finally starting to be uncomfortable under Severus’ stare because he fumbles for a moment and adds, “Only if you _want_ to, that is. I mean, obviously you don’t go out much, but I–”

Severus’ heart clenches suddenly at the words. “Why would you think that?” he asks dryly.

Harry looks startled, and he speaks more softly still, surely aware that he’s just crossed a line. “I just assumed, from the way you–”

Severus feels his own features settle in a nasty snarl. “You don’t _know_ me, so how you could _possibly_ know that? One shouldn’t _assume_ things about others. How dare you?”

Harry’s eyes widen, and he’s silent for a long moment, staring at Severus, who’s surely visibly brimming with anger.

“Look, I was just trying to say that I…” he starts, then trails off and slides from the seat at last, standing up. “I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” he mumbles. “I shouldn’t have come over in the first place. I’ll leave you alone now. I’m… I’m sorry,” he repeats before leaving.

Severus watches as he walks away back towards his seat, pauses, hesitates, and finally sits across from the one he was occupying earlier, his back to Severus, so that he’s completely invisible to him now.

What the bloody hell just happened? Severus replays the events in his head, trying to comprehend it all.

Did this boy, this beautiful and strange boy, just ask him out? Did Severus really make him laugh? Did he wake up in a different world this morning? In some sort of parallel universe in which he can make people laugh, in which people think he’s funny? A world in which people appreciate his company, even seek him out?

But who cares if he made the boy laugh or if the boy asked him out? Severus ruined it. Of course, he did. That’s what he does, he ruins things. He panics and turns mean and he pushes people away. Just like Minerva said.

 _I was wondering if you’d like to have a drink with me._ Oh Merlin, why couldn’t Severus just be normal and civil and say yes. Obviously, what the boy said next wasn’t meant as an insult, so why did he take it as such?

The fact that he’s lonely is as obvious as the nose in the centre of his face. It’s just that no one had ever pointed it out this way before. Certainly not a stranger. And certainly not a stranger such as this one.

And what does Harry know of loneliness? Severus thought he looked lonely before, the first time he saw him at King’s Cross. But he must have been mistaken, although it’s not in his habit to misjudge people... Still, how could someone so bright and full of life ever be lonely? He must be surrounded by people, coddled and protected and loved every second…

Severus peeks along the aisle, but still the boy is out of view. He reaches into his pocket and fishes out the journal to look at the last drawing.

Why would someone like Harry be wandering on trains on a Saturday, all by himself, looking so lost if he wasn’t lonely? Why would he be walking on a freezing beach, in the middle of winter, miles away from London, if he wasn’t lonely, if he wasn’t lost? If he wasn’t like Severus?

By the time the train reaches London, Severus has made up his mind. As soon as he disembarks, he searches the crowd, peering over heads and shoulders, scanning the platform every which way. And he doesn’t even care if he looks desperate.

When he finally spots the black winter robe and the disarrayed hair, he hurries to catch up with the boy, who’s already heading towards the Apparition zone.

“Harry,” Severus says, putting a steady hand on the boy’s shoulder, and a second later, he’s met with surprised green eyes. “I wanted to apologise about earlier,” he declares in a tone he hopes is reassuring, because for a second the boy looks ready to shrug his hand off and keep walking. “I’m feeling out of sorts today. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

Harry stares at him for a moment, and Severus is suddenly conscious that this, right here, might be the only time he’s ever apologised for something he’s said, the only time he’s ever admitted to overreacting, in his entire life. It’s the only such moment that comes to mind, at least.

And just like that, Harry’s mouth curls into a smile, soft and forgiving. “It’s all right. I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have said what I said either. I’ve had a strange few days as well, I suppose,” he reveals. “We could have that drink now, maybe I’d forgive you.”

“I don’t drink,” Severus announces, his stomach churning, “but I would buy you one.”

Harry grins. “Leaky Cauldron?”

“That seems acceptable.”

They head towards the Apparition zone together, and as soon as they’ve reached it, before Severus can say anything more, Harry’s hand is on his arm and he finds himself swept away into a maelstrom of colours and shapes. Barely a second later, when his feet touch the ground again, he’s been transported into Diagon, in the narrow alley next to the pub.

He lets out the breath he hasn’t even had time to hold. That must have been the fastest, smoothest Apparition he’s ever experienced. It was over in the blink of an eye. He’s rarely reached his destination without feeling nauseated, let alone during a Side-Along.

Harry is close, barely inches away, hand still on his arm, and Severus looks at him differently now. Not only is this boy beautiful, but he must be incredibly powerful to Apparate like this, so fast, so steadily.

This revelation makes Harry even more appealing. Standing here like this, alone with him in the dark, so close, Severus suddenly wants to kiss him. And before he has truly realised it, he is already looking for ways to lead Harry into his bed.

He _has_ to have him. When is he ever again going to meet someone like this, someone beautiful and smart and powerful, who is neither afraid nor disgusted by him, who enjoys being with him? Someone who laughs at what he says, who speaks softly to him, whose green eyes sparkle when they look at him?

Snow falls gently around them in thick clusters of flakes as they exit the alley and head towards The Leaky Cauldron. A few young men stumble past them, roaring with laughter on their way out of the pub.

“Oi, Potter!” one of them calls out excitedly when noticing Harry before rushing over. “Potter! How you doin’, mate?” he asks unnecessarily loudly.

Harry tenses up, and Severus unconsciously finds himself stepping closer to him as the young man, obviously very drunk, reaches out to grab Harry’s hand and shake it eagerly. He seems to be barely out of Hogwarts and his winter cloak is askew, as if he’s put it on in a hurry.

“I’m good, thanks,” Harry replies, shaking the younger man’s hand briefly and letting it go. “Have a good night,” he adds politely before turning back to Severus with the intention of walking away

“Oh, come on, mate! Don’t be rude! Come and have a drink with us!” the drunk boy demands, reaching out and grabbing Harry’s arm to stop him from leaving.

Severus catches his wrist with one hand, the other one having mysteriously found its way to the small of Harry’s back in a protective gesture. “Have a good night,” he says coldly, repeating Harry’s words before firmly shoving the stranger away.

The drunk boy stares at him with wide eyes before turning apologetic. “Sorry, mate! Didn’t mean anything by it! Hey, I’m sorry mate!” he calls out as his friends, surely sensing the sudden tension, come rushing over to drag him away.

Severus throws them a harsh look and leads Harry in the opposite direction, hand still on his back. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s nothing,” Harry says softly, not quite looking his way. He seems embarrassed by the encounter.

“Friend of yours?” Severus asks dryly.

Harry shakes his head. “Not really, no.”

“Should I go back and hex him?” he finds himself asking, though he’s almost certain if Harry wanted that boy hexed, he could do it himself very successfully.

Harry’s lips curl at that. “That’s not necessary, but thanks.”

When they reach the pub, Harry stops near the entrance. Even from outside, they can hear the commotion and the raucous.

“You know,” the boy says softly, hesitant now, not daring to look into Severus’ eyes, “it’s probably crowded tonight, and on second thought, I think I’d rather–”

“I live not far from here,” Severus interrupts before he can stop to compose his thoughts. “Only a short walk.”

Harry raises his head to finally look at him, his green eyes wide in the dimness of the alley. “Oh?”

“I only have tea, but if you’d like–”

“Tea is perfect.”

Severus’ throat feels incredibly tight, so he nods.

As they head away from the pub together, he shoves his hands into his pockets to hide the fact that they’re shaking. The one that used to be pressed against Harry’s back feels warm, tingling. It longs for the touch again.

At the sudden realisation of what’s happening, Severus feels a rush of adrenaline tinged with an underlying of fear. What the bloody hell is he doing? Does he really think this can end well? Surely this boy can’t _possibly_ be attracted to him. And yet he’s following him home. Who follows a man they barely know all the way home if it isn’t because they’re expecting something more than a cup of tea?

He shoves those thoughts away roughly. Merlin, he wants this so badly he doesn’t even care if Harry really _is_ attracted to him or not. Severus will take whatever he can have, whatever the boy is willing to give him.

“You’re not some sort of madman leading me to my doom, are you?” Harry suddenly asks, breaking the silence as they head further away from the most crowded part of the street.

When Severus looks at him, he’s grinning again, half his face highlighted by the streetlamps. He seems to have forgotten all about the young man from earlier.

“I’m not. Though I feel obliged to remind you that _you_ talked to me first. Remember?”

Harry lets out a short, pure bark of laughter that echoes in the nearly empty street. “Oh, that is the oldest trick in the madman book!”

Severus can’t help but smirk. “Is there such a book? I have yet to read it.”

“I’ll gladly lend it to you when I’m done,” Harry says with a shrug, still grinning. “Though with your staring at strangers and secretly drawing them, you’re doing just fine on your own.”

“Thank you. How flattering.”

It occurs to him then that they’re flirting.

He’s witnessed people do it before and found it trite and useless and annoying. Why not ask directly for what you want instead of running around in circles? he’d always thought. But here he is, doing the same. Because asking directly for what he wants might scare off this boy walking with him, following him home. And he feels his heart will cave in on itself and rot inside his chest if this night ends without this beautiful creature in his bed.

They enter the house by the back alley instead of the front door the customers use, and Harry peers into the shop curiously as Severus locks up behind them. Then they climb up the stairs in silence. Once again, Severus waves his wand at the radiator, which comes alive with a noisy clatter. Then he turns on a few lamps and casts a general warming spell on the flat. He is relieved to realise that there is no dizziness now. His magic seems to be back to normal, thank Merlin.

“It should be warm soon,” he tells Harry. “May I take your robe?”

The boy nods, immediately unclasping it and turning around to let Severus take it off him. Severus lets out a deep, silent, trembling breath as he does so. The gesture feels so incredibly intimate. His hands are shaking as he takes the garment, the fur incredibly soft under his fingers, and he swallows at the sight of the nape of the boy’s neck, which he’s just revealed, peeking between the collar of his jumper and the dark curls of hair. He longs to lean in and press his mouth to it, but he turns away instead, hangs the robe on a coatrack, along with his own, then leads Harry into the kitchen.

The kettle is still out from this morning, and Severus taps his wand against it to bring the water to a boil. He’s seen Harry shivering, though the boy is doing his best to hide it, and he’d rather not have to wait too long to offer him a hot drink.

“It should be warm soon,” he repeats.

Harry nods, looking around at the sparse kitchen, while Severus hurriedly washes the cup he used this morning and takes the spare one out of the cupboard.

“My selection of tea is not very extensive, I’m afraid,” he says, going through the bags. “I have Earl Grey or English Breakfast. And I think some herbal concoction my assistant might have left somewhere…” He trails off, suddenly realising he’s babbling.

“Earl Grey is okay,” Harry says, turning to him. “Have you just moved here?”

Severus clears his throat in embarrassment. “No. I suppose I should furnish this place at some point. I’ve been preoccupied with work, and other matters.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean… It’s fine. Very minimalistic,” Harry remarks. “ _My_ house is so cluttered, and I’ve been meaning to clean it up forever, but I can only manage a little at a time. It’s too big for me alone. This is much better. If you live on your own, that’s really all you need…” He trails off, crosses his arms, maybe to keep warm. Then he looks at Severus and grins. “I don’t know why I’m nervous,” he admits.

Severus swallows around the knot in his throat. “You wouldn’t be the first. I tend to have that effect on people,” he remarks, then realises the boy might get the wrong idea. “I had to hire an assistant to help me with the customers,” he explains as he pours water in the two cups. “Apparently, I possess no… How is it she put it? _People skills_. In her opinion, it’s best I remain in the backroom, away from sight.”

Harry laughs. “Your assistant said that?”

“It seems to be a matter of general opinion.”

He turns and hands the boy his own cup, the old chipped one, now filled with Earl Grey. Harry takes it, staring amusedly at the one Severus is holding, the ugly Christmas one.

“That’s atrocious,” he finally says, laughter in his eyes, but obviously not wishing to upset Severus in case he happens to be attached to the thing.

“I’m well aware. It serves its purpose, however.”

Harry takes a sip of tea and smiles at him over the rim of the cup. “I think I’ve seen one like it before, actually.”

Severus snorts, looking at the thing with derision. “Unlikely. I happen to know it is one of a kind. A hand-made gift from an old acquaintance. Hopefully he has decided pottery is not a pastime worth pursuing. Sit, please,” he adds, gesturing at the kitchen table, where is still folded his copy of the _Prophet_ from this morning.

They sit and drink silently for a time. Severus tries to stop himself from staring at the boy, whose eyes shine in the golden glow of the oil lamp.

“Where are you from?” Harry asks when the silence has almost become heavy.

“The Midlands.”

“Oh, my mum’s family was from the Midlands,” Harry announces. “But I grew up in Surrey. Where exactly did you grow up?”

“Somewhere unimportant and unremarkable,” Severus replies shortly.

Harry shakes his head, “I’m sorry, I ask too many questions. I tend to talk too much…”

Severus knows this is only natural, to want to know things about someone. Merlin knows _he_ wants to know everything about this boy, but part of him is afraid to ask. He’s never been gifted in the art of conversation and he fears they’ll hit a snag again, like they did earlier on the train, and he’ll end up sneering and defensive and bitter and will chase the boy away. It seems completely inevitable. He’d much rather they just sit in silence until… Until what? He doesn’t dare think the words.

“My life is not very interesting,” he explains with a shrug. “I work. I come home… My work is at home. There’s nothing else to say. Every day of my life is the same, it seems.” Severus considers this for an instant, then adds, “Except for today. Today is definitely different.”

Harry smiles at this, and Severus wants nothing more in this moment than to reach out and touch his mouth, to trace the curve of the smile with his fingertips. “I’m glad to be a part of it,” the boy says softly before raising his cup to his lips and taking a long gulp of tea.

Severus tears his eyes away, looks towards the window. The snow is still falling, gently, steadily.

“Doesn’t it scare you, routine?” Harry asks then, and when Severus turns back, the boy is leaning forward, peering intensely at him. “I’m always afraid that I’m not living my life to the fullest, not taking advantage of every possibility. I always feel the need to make sure I’m not wasting one single second of the little time I have.”

Severus stares at him for a long moment, then shakes his head. “I don’t understand how you could think that. How old are you? Twenty-five?”

“Twenty-three,” Harry corrects. “But I don’t feel young. Sometimes I feel… very old. And tired.”

 _You don’t look old_ , Severus wants to tell him. _You don’t look tired. You look like something from another world. Something pure and honest and true_. _Something alive. Perhaps the only thing that’s alive in this godforsaken city._

“I haven’t told anyone this before, but I’m thinking of quitting the Aurors,” Harry announces softly, and from the way he’s looking at Severus now, he’s been dying to say the words and is grateful for an opportunity to finally let them out.

“Why?” Severus asks curiously.

“I don’t think it’s good for me. I started because that’s what was expected of me, and I wanted to help people, to make a difference. And maybe I thought, foolishly, that after Voldemort there wouldn’t be anything very evil to deal with but… there always is. If you look hard enough.” He stops, then smiles bitterly. “Actually, you don’t really have to look that hard.”

Severus tries to swallow, his mouth terribly dry. He’s unsure if the unrest he’s feeling is caused by the boy’s naked honesty, or by the fact that he’s just spoken the Dark Lord’s name completely casually.

“Most of the cases we get don’t even make it to the papers,” Harry continues. “They’re classified and locked away, and no one ever knows about them.” He stops and takes a deep breath, wrapping his hands tightly around the cup. “The things we have to do sometimes, I’m not allowed to talk about but, I don’t like it. And I think it’s starting to turn me into someone I’m not. Someone I don’t want to be.”

“Then quit,” Severus tells him. “What’s stopping you?”

Harry shakes his head. “Expectations. I feel like everyone expects me to climb up the ladder, to maybe lead the department one day. I don’t think I want that, though. I think I want out. But I don’t honestly know what else I could do. I’m not good at anything else,” he concludes before draining his tea and setting the cup down on the table. “This is good tea,” he adds, more lightly, perhaps to diffuse the seriousness of the conversation.

“Would you like another?”

“Oh no, I’m good. Thank you, though.”

Severus stands to take the boy’s empty mug and put it in the sink. Then he empties what’s left of his own, watching the liquid flow down the drain.

He’s nervous, he realises, and gripping the counter tightly. Even more nervous than before. Now that there’s no more drinking tea, what is going to happen? What should he say? What should he do?

“It must be great having your own shop, being your own boss. How long have you been an apothecary?” Harry inquires.

Severus turns to look at him, leaning back on the kitchen counter and trying to appear in full control of his nerves.

“I opened the shop seven years ago, shortly after the war. The old man, Mulpepper, had disappeared, and the house and shop had fallen to Gringotts. I only had meagre savings, but a good reputation as a potions master and the bank agreed to sell it to me on a loan. It’s paying for itself well enough, but I have to be careful nonetheless. Being your own boss has its fair share of responsibilities still.”

Severus stops there, lest he turns patronising or starts boring the boy, but Harry is nodding and looking at him with some interest, so he continues.

“It’s a lot of work, and I only rarely allow myself to take days off. My assistant handles the public side of things, thankfully. She’s a clever girl, and hardworking, although annoyingly talkative and prone to fits of silliness. But thanks to her, I can brew in peace.”

Harry smirks. “You really don’t like being around other people much, do you?”

“Other people are generally idiots,” Severus admits. “And the sentiment is reciprocated. People tend to dislike being around me as well.”

He stops talking, wants to hit himself. _Shut up or he’ll start thinking he shouldn’t stick around and waste his time on you either_.

But Harry is standing from the table and looking at him directly. “I think you’re nice,” he says softly, approaching the counter, approaching him. “Maybe you don’t look it at first glance, but deep down, I think you’re a good person.”

The boy is so close all of a sudden that Severus realises that he’s been holding his breath. He lets it out steadily, tries to keep his composure. At a loss for reason, he can’t stop himself from saying, “We’ve only just met. How could you possibly know that?”

But his words are not rude or defensive, like earlier on the train. He feels lost in those green eyes, in their open honesty, their softness.

“I just know,” Harry says softly, and he’s only a short distance away now. “You have sad eyes.”

When Severus was still teaching, he would spend the whole month of August at the castle. And he would wake up early in the morning and venture around the grounds, the forest and the river, collecting herbs for the potions stores. He did it early, before the heat became too intense, and the sunny morning, when the grass was still shiny with dew and the air fresh and scented with the summer breeze, was his favourite time of the day. With the rare residents of the castle still sleeping, there was no one about to bother him as he wandered around, examining the bushes and the undergrowth. The sun was bright already, its rays hitting the grounds at a low angle, highlighting everything in contrasts of light and shadows. There was this spot, right near the edge of the forest, where the greenness seemed amplified by the nearby shadows of the canopy. 

As he remembers this, Severus realises he was mistaken.

Harry’s eyes are not the colour of the Killing Curse. They’re the colour of tree leaves in the morning sun. The colour of light on the edge of darkness.

His heart tightens with longing and fear as he says the words. “Would you… object if I were to kiss you?”

He watches as the corner of Harry’s mouth curls into this half-smile he’s already become familiar with. “Oh, I don’t know,” the boy says quietly. “You can try… see how it goes.”

He steps closer, and then closer still, letting himself be drawn into Severus’ space, tentative, until he’s just inches away. Finally, Severus reaches out, cupping his jaw, thumbs caressing the curve of his mouth like he’s been dying to do all night. He watches the boy’s face intently as the smile fades away at his touch, until Harry’s lips are trembling under his fingers.

Severus shifts his face closer, lets his hands drift, fingers pushing through the tangle of the boy’s hair, cradling the back of his skull in his palms. He’s stalling, his heart a terrified animal inside his chest, wondering how to go about doing this, breathing shakily in the space between them, when suddenly Harry surges forward to kiss him.

Severus kisses back hungrily, and Harry’s mouth opens to his at once, warm and alive. Every stroke of his tongue ignites in Severus something sharp and striking, something that erupts along his spine.

He kisses Harry until he can’t breathe anymore, until he has to gasp. And when their mouths find each other again a second later, what started out gentle shifts into something different, something urgent. Severus is dizzy with it, with the way his heart keeps skipping beats, the way his lungs crave air, but he’ll die if he has to let go of Harry’s lips. Harry’s mouth is perfection under his. Warm and wet and sweet. And he’ll be damned if he’s ever felt anything as arousing as this boy’s body pressing itself against his, as the way Harry’s hands grasp at his shoulders, at his neck, at his hair. It’s perfection.

Before long, without knowing how, they’ve made their way into the hallway and are kissing on the landing, in the half-darkness. Harry grinds their hips together once, twice, and then again. Severus hisses through his teeth, holding him pinned firmly against the wall, and he lets his mouth drift to the side of the boy’s neck, licking and sucking desperately at the warm skin.

Harry moans, letting his head fall back, fingers digging into Severus’ shoulders, and Severus’ breath stutters out of him at the sound, loud in the silence of the house.

“I want you to fuck me,” Harry chokes out, gripping Severus’ hair tightly in his fists now. “I want it so bad… Since I saw you at King’s Cross...” He gasps, then lets out another long moan as Severus’ mouth finds its way to the hollow of his throat, and then lower, to suck sharply on his collarbone.

Severus’ whole body is on fire. It _must_ be. He slips both hands under the boy’s jumper, eager to touch the heated skin. But it’s not enough. Merlin, it’s not enough.

Severus hoists him off the floor. His arm and back muscles protest, but he doesn’t care. Harry clutches at him as Severus stumbles into the bedroom, nearly knocking over the tall mirror, bumping into the armchair beside it.

He lowers Harry onto the bed, not as gently as he’d hoped, but the roughness is quickly forgiven and next second hands are clawing at his clothes. Harry cusses softly, fumbling with the buttons on the tight collar of Severus’ robe, and just as Severus is reaching to help him, a wave of warm magic washes over him and he finds his robe and shirt are open, as well as his belt and trousers.

“Sorry,” Harry mumbles, not sounding sorry at all. “I’m impatient.”

He grins at Severus in the half-darkness, the only source of light coming from the lamp in the hallway. The glow forms a golden halo on the side of his face and hair. But when his gaze strays down from Severus’ face to his neck, his eyes turn sad.

Severus’ breath catches, and he almost shifts away by instinct when the boy raises a hand to touch the scarred skin. But there is no mockery, no leering expression, no curiosity. Just something tender.

“Does it hurt?”

Severus shakes his head, unable to speak, heart stuck in his throat. But Harry doesn’t say anything more, only looks at him softly before sitting up to slip both his arms inside Severus’ unbuttoned shirt, wrapping them around his torso in a tight embrace. And he presses his face into the crook of Severus’ neck.

He does nothing at first, and all Severus feels is soft hair tickling his chin. But then there is Harry’s mouth, warm, wet and sloppy against his skin, against the scarred flesh of his wound. Not a kiss, just a hot trail of lips and tongue and saliva that sets Severus’ whole body on fire.

If it were anyone else doing this to him, he would push them away roughly, he would pry himself from their grasp, leave the bed and furiously throw them out on the street. But it’s Harry. It’s this strange, captivating boy. This boy who seems to know him without even trying, to see right through him, to crumble all his defences.

And it’s just like in his dream. It’s just what he’s imagined, what he’s secretly longed for. How could this be? Did he dream this before it happened?

But all thoughts of this slip from his mind when Harry finally pushes the hanging clothes off him, and Severus lets everything slip off his shoulders and fall to the floor.

Of course, the boy notices the tattoo straight away, even with the lack of light, and a shard of ice pierces through Severus’ guts at the realisation that he’ll know exactly what it means. How could he be so stupid? How could he forget? He watches with dread as Harry brings his left forearm into the dim light to take a closer look.

It was Draco’s idea first. After the war, when the remaining Death Eaters were being rounded up and put on trials, were being cleared or locked up depending on their crimes and who was willing to speak for them, after they had both been somewhat redeemed, Draco was eager to erase all traces of his past mistakes. But you don’t just erase the Dark Mark. Even the most advanced spells were useless against it. He’d done something that still surprises Severus to this day. Since magic proved ineffective, he’d gone to see the Muggles about it. Without explaining the true reasons behind it, of course. Without revealing the real significance of the strange mark.

 _They’re surprisingly very skilled at it, you know, Muggles_ , Draco had said when showing him the resulting tattoo. Gone were all traces of the skull and the snake, cleverly hidden under a thick cluster of colourful, exotic flowers.

Severus had found a different artist, a renowned one in London, with the reputation of being particularly skilled at fixing mistakes. But he didn’t want colourful exotic flowers, and the Muggle was happy to create something unique just for him. He did put in flowers, because in the end it was the easiest shape to hide the skull, he said, but he added mostly leaves and minute details. He ended up keeping the snake, but reshaping it, detailing it, adding coils and defined scales, until it was completely unrecognisable as the one from the original design. Then they’d added colours, settling for shades of green, blue, grey and teal.

It took hours. And it hurt, of course. It wasn’t the worse pain he’d experienced. Nothing compared to the _Cruciatus_ , nothing even close. It was drawn-out and constant and numbing, igniting needles of shivers all over his body. But it was worth it. And he would do it all over again.

The result is breathtaking, and Severus often finds himself staring at it for long minutes. But as Harry examines it now, fear grips him. Because he will know! He will know what’s hidden beneath. Surely, he will…

“I didn’t think you were the type,” Harry remarks softly, tracing the snake with his fingertips before grinning up at Severus. “Slytherin, uh?”

“Yes,” Severus says softly, at a loss for words.

Harry smirks, leans forward to mouth at his chin, at his neck again. “It’s sexy,” he mumbles. “Undress me?”

Severus doesn’t need to be told twice, but he takes his time doing it, like unwrapping a long-awaited present. Like opening a delicate parcel. He pulls Harry’s jumper over his head and the boy lets him, and he caresses the skin afterwards, white and soft and unblemished.

 _You shouldn’t be allowed this_ , a small voice sneers in the back of his mind. _This is perfection. You shouldn’t be allowed to touch this_.

Severus ignores it, curls forward to kiss Harry’s chest, and the boy moans, arching into him, hands finding his hair again. Severus mouths at his skin, eager to taste him, to feel the shivers under his tongue.

Harry lies back on the bed, spreading his legs, pulling Severus in, inviting him, offering himself. With shaking hands, Severus undoes the boy’s trousers and Harry gasps a long, half-moan when Severus’ fingers wrap around his cock. Severus strokes the head gently and the boy arches, gripping his hair, fingernails digging into his scalp.

 _You burn me_ , Severus wants to tell him, but he can’t take his mouth off Harry’s skin long enough to form words. _You set me on fire_.

He slides his mouth along the boy’s stomach, nose pressed into his skin, taking in the smell of him, the softness.

“Take them off,” Harry urges, raising his hips.

Severus pulls back, hurriedly getting rid of Harry’s boots and socks, and pulling off the boy’s trousers and underwear, tossing them to the floor. Then he lifts one of Harry’s legs over his shoulder and takes a mouthful of the boy’s cock.

He raises his eyes to look at Harry as he sucks and the sight that greets him makes his own hard prick twitch. The sight of Harry, completely naked and spread out on his bed, skin pale against the dark covers. He’s gripping the headboard with one hand, the other tangled up in his own hair, pulling helplessly as he arches into Severus’ mouth.

“Fuck…” Harry gasps encouragingly, bracing himself, the heel of his foot digging into Severus’ shoulder blade. “So good…”

Severus can’t breathe. It’s all too much. This boy is too much.

He’s dying. He will surely die before this is over. It’s too good. He doesn’t get to have this. Not him. Not Severus Snape.

Suddenly Harry’s hands are in his hair again, pulling him back to earth, to this bed. Harry is tugging him upwards again, dragging their lips together again.

“I need you,” the boy says quietly, the words warm and damp against his cheek. “I need you to fuck me.”

Severus presses his lips to Harry’s mouth, hard. He needs the boy to be quiet. Because if he has to hear those words again, Severus will dissolve into thin air. His whole being will evaporate with want and longing.

He removes his own boots and trousers and pants carelessly, but before he can find Harry’s mouth again, before he can cover Harry’s body with his, Harry is pushing him flat onto the bed and crawling on top of him, straddling him. Severus hisses when Harry leans forward, trapping both their cocks between their bodies, grinding into him. He feels oversensitive, like a teenager who’s never done this before. And maybe he hasn’t, not really. Maybe he has never done anything like this before. Not like _this_.

Harry grabs one of Severus’ hands and guides it to his arse. Severus finds wetness between his cheeks, and breath catches in his throat.

“Told you I’m impatient,” Harry mumbles.

The way Harry smirks down at him, the way he rolls his hips, the feel of his skin. It’s too much for Severus. He cannot take it anymore. He slips two fingers inside Harry and they go easily. Harry’s hole is warm and slicked by the preparation spell Severus didn’t even notice he cast. Wandless. Wordless as well.

“Another one,” Harry urges, voice raspy now, wrapping his hands around both their cocks and stroking.

 _I don’t want to hurt you_ , Severus means to say, but he can’t breathe, and his mouth is so parched that no words come out and he can only obey. He slips a third finger in, forces it into the tightness, but Harry doesn’t flinch, only moans again, long and low, pressing back and then pulling away, fucking himself on Severus’ fingers.

“Now you,” he rasps then, shifting away to settle over Severus’ cock.

 _Wait_ , Severus tries to say, but the words don’t come out, and all the breath leaves him at the feel of his cock breaching Harry’s body. He grits his teeth, palms gripping Harry’s hips tightly. He breathes deeply through his nose. _Don’t come, don’t come, don’t come. Let it last. Merlin, let it last. Just a bit longer_.

“Wait,” he finally manages through his parched throat.

Harry grins down at him, sweaty and gorgeous, and stills. Just for a second. Then he’s sinking a little lower onto his cock, clenching around him.

“Wait,” Severus gasps again, weakly, arching up. “Just wait.”

But Harry ignores him. Reaching back, his hands find a grip on Severus’ thighs, and he sinks down all the way with a moan so filthy and beautiful that the combination of the sound of it and the slow drag of warmth around his cock makes Severus see stars.

“Fuck!” Severus moans, sitting up to grab the boy, to stop him from moving.

He needs everything to be still. He needs to breathe, to allow his heart to steady before the thing bursts out of his chest. He holds Harry tightly against him, and the boy holds onto his shoulders for leverage, clenching around him again as he lifts his arse up.

“I told you to bloody wait, damn you…” Severus rasps weakly into Harry’s damp hair as a great shiver runs through his body.

Harry finally stills. Panting softly, he lets Severus caress the soft skin of his back, of his ribs, lets himself be held.

Severus is completely, thoroughly lost. He’s never been with someone like this. Every encounter has always been a race to completion, a means to a relief. An unpleasant contact of body parts and fluids that left him disgusted with himself and the other unfortunate soul that happened to be in his presence. Every bout of intimacy has always been a necessary evil to rid himself of an urge. Until today.

Harry’s heart is pounding. Severus feels it against his own chest as he holds him tight, feels the air going in and out of his lungs with every trembling breath.

Before he knows it, he’s cupping the boy’s face and kissing him gently. More gently than he’s ever kissed anyone before, than he’s ever thought it was humanly possible to do.

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispers when their lips part. “Is this okay?”

“It’s perfect,” Severus mumbles, pressing his mouth everywhere there’s skin, temple, chin, neck. “I just want it to last.”

Harry nods, pushing a strand of hair from Severus’ face tenderly. “Do what you want to me… Anything you want… I’ll let you…”

Severus pulls Harry’s legs gently around his waist until the boy is completely seated on his lap. Then, holding him tight, he starts thrusting slowly, mouthing at the side of his neck, at the hot, sweaty skin. Harry moans, tangling his hands into Severus’ hair, letting him thrust up into him, hips rolling back into each movement.

“Good?” Severus manages to breathe into his ear, teeth grazing the lobe, before finally giving in and sucking it into his mouth.

“So good,” Harry moans. “Fuck…”

Is this what people do every day? Severus wonders, holding back with all his might, letting his mind wander. Is this what intimacy is meant to be like? Breathing deeply, he tries to concentrate on another part of his body, on the feeling in his toes, on the back of his knees, on any part of him that is not touching Harry. On any part of him other than his cock and the sweet, tight slide of Harry’s body around it.

“Harder… fuck…” Harry begs, a beautiful half-sob, when Severus’ cock brushes his prostate.

Severus moves his hips sharply upwards, and Harry keens, pulling at his hair. “Tell me…” he gasps into the boy’s neck. “Tell me when you’re close…”

“I’m close…” Harry moans at once as Severus pounds into him, fingers digging into Severus’ scalp painfully.

A moment later, the boy is coming with a loud, uninhibited moan such has never echoed through the walls of Severus’ bedroom before, such has never reached Severus’ ears before.

Severus wishes he had neighbours behind the bedroom wall. He wishes they could hear this and know that _he_ was the one to cause this. That he alone – lonely, old, unwanted Severus Snape – made this beautiful boy come.

The moan, the feel of Harry’s come between their bodies, the tight pulsing of his hole around Severus’ cock, and the harsh tug on his hair, is all it takes for Severus to reach climax.

“Harry,” he grunts, stilling his hips as he spends himself, his vision filling with brightness. Harry’s mouth crushes his, swallowing his voice, swallowing his own name.

They hold each other for a long time afterwards, struggling to catch their breath, mouths meeting and then parting and meeting again, hands clutching at hair and shoulders and backs and skin. Just skin.

“Fuck, that was good,” Harry finally says softly, threading his hands through Severus’ hair, which is in complete disarray and damp with sweat by now.

Severus leans into the touch, sliding his nose along the boy’s cheek. “Indeed.”

Harry laughs, loud and bright in the darkness of the bedroom. “ _Indeed_ ,” he mimics in a surprisingly good imitation of Severus.

Severus is not offended, and he feels his lips curl into a smile in spite of himself. He presses a kiss to Harry’s temple, caressing his back softly. He’s exhausted and brimming with energy at the same time. He wishes they could do this again right this moment. He wishes it hadn’t ended. He wishes he was twenty-three as well, so they might get back to it in no time at all.

Harry shifts, lifting his arse to let Severus slip out. Still dizzy, and still struggling to catch his breath, Severus lies back down on the bed. A second later the boy is settling completely on top of him on the narrow bed, as if he doesn’t weight anything at all. But Severus doesn’t care about the weight. He feels light as a feather. Everything is light and weightless and perfect.

He slides his hands along the curve of Harry’s spine, parts the cheeks of his arse with his fingers, touching his hole, finding it wet with his come. A spark of lust shoots through him again.

Harry moans appreciatively and looks up at him. “I’ll marry you one day. I know it,” he slurs tenderly, before resting his cheek over Severus’ heart.

Severus is speechless. What a ridiculous thing to say, but his heart aches at hearing the words. They’re just that, words. They’re just what boys like this one say in the aftermath of a good fuck. They don’t mean anything.

And yet, Severus can’t help but notice how well the two of them fit together. So easily, so perfectly, that he finds himself wondering how they haven’t found each other before today. How hasn’t he been drawn to this boy like a magnet, even in a city this big?

He mumbles a cleaning spell, and Harry shifts on top of him as all traces of sweat and cum and lube and saliva evaporate from their bodies.

“Do you want me to leave?” Harry asks quietly. “I’ll go if you want me to.”

“You can stay,” Severus says, bringing one of his hands to cradle the back of the boy’s head. “I’d rather you stay,” he adds, hardly believing he’s actually saying those words to someone else.

Harry hums in approval. “I don’t think I can sleep though.”

“Neither can I,” Severus admits.

Whenever he tries to close his eyes, he finds nothing but brightness behind his lids. Everything inside his head is brimming with sudden light.

Harry rolls off of him, his body plopping down on the bed beside Severus, who tries to convince himself he doesn’t miss the weight and the warmth the slightest bit. Chin propped up on his hand, Harry looks at him closely, a hint of mischief in his eyes.

“You want to go somewhere? We should go to Hogsmeade.”

Severus squints at him in the darkness, trying to determine if he’s serious or not. “Now?”

Harry is grinning, amused by his disbelief. “Yeah, now.”

“What for?”

“I want to see the lake,” the boy reveals. “It gets frozen this time of year, and I like to run out to the centre of it, lie down and look at the stars. We could bring food!” he adds suddenly, eyes wide with excitement. “We could have a night picnic!”

Severus huffs out a breath of disbelief, shaking his head. “You’re absolutely ridiculous.”

Harry’s grin widens. “You’ll come then?”

“Certainly not.”

In a succession of events he can’t quite reconstruct or wrap his head around, barely half an hour later, Severus finds himself in Hogsmeade, standing on the edge of the lake, holding a damn picnic basket.

“I’ve changed my mind!” he calls out, watching Harry slowly try to walk on the frozen surface, sliding with every step. “Let’s go back. Harry, come back! It could break!”

“It won’t break!” Harry shouts back with glee before turning back to him and jumping up and down heavily. “See? It’s very solid!”

“Stop that!” Severus yells. “Stop it!”

Harry stops jumping and starts laughing instead. “Don’t worry. It’s solid, I swear! Come on!”

“No! Come back! What if it breaks?”

“What if?” Harry walks back towards him, his hand held out. “We’ll worry about it if it does. But it won’t.”

When he reaches Severus, he pulls him sharply onto the frozen surface. Severus braces himself, walking so very slowly that Harry erupts with laughter.

“Come on!”

Harry grabs the picnic basket, drops it onto the ice, and with a swift kick, sends it sliding away to the centre of the lake. Now that both of Severus’ hands are free, he grasps them firmly, leading him further. 

“If you fall through, I’ll _Accio_ you out, I promise. Then we’ll just have to get naked to warm you up,” he adds with a smirk.

“I’d rather not get naked out in the open like this,” Severus grumbles, looking down at his feet to make sure the ice isn’t giving under them. “There are plenty of spells for keeping warm.”

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?”

Severus stops abruptly. “I heard a crack!”

Harry shakes his head, pulling him sharply forward. “No, you didn’t. Stop worrying. It’ll be alright.”

They keep walking and sliding, slowly, until they reach the picnic basket Harry has filled with warm tea and biscuits.

“This is far enough,” Severus declares, legs shaking when he looks at the shore in the distance.

“Fine, fine,” Harry relents. “We’ll stay here then.”

Severus casts a look around. The night is clear and the air cold and crisp, their breaths coming out in clouds. He can see the sparse lights of Hogsmeade nearby, and Hogwarts illuminates the landscape to the left, a beacon in the night.

Harry lies down on his back on the frozen lake, grinning up at Severus, then pats the ice beside him. Severus lies down awkwardly next to him. The sky overhead is bright with stars and breath-taking. You certainly don’t see this sort of thing in London.

“Do you like it?” Harry asks quietly.

Severus grunts. “Oddly enough, I do.”

Harry laughs sharply, grabbing his arm. “Ha! You said _I do_! I guess that means we’re married now.”

Severus shakes his head, but his heart feels full to bursting. “You’re ridiculous.”

They lapse into silence. Harry scoots closer, laying his head on Severus’ shoulder as they look up at the shimmering night sky.

“You want to go back to my place after?” the boy finally asks. “My bed is bigger than yours. I won’t have to lie on top of you. And it’s warmer.”

“I want that,” Severus says quietly. “Very much.”

He looks up at the stars, at their glittering lights, and takes one of Harry’s hands in his, warm even through the gloves. They lie there for a long time, not speaking. Then Harry leans in closer, his breath warm on Severus’ ear.

“Show me which constellations you know,” he whispers.


	2. THURSDAY - mnemonic mapping

* * *

  
**2**

**THURSDAY**

_mnemonic mapping_

* * *

  
_(two days earlier…)_

The morning is cold and grey, and Severus has been standing on the street for a long time. Too long. Long enough that the Muggles are starting to stare.

Fists shaking where they’re jammed deep inside his pockets, he turns and walks along the stretch of sidewalk again, back and forth between numbers eleven and thirteen. Still nothing happens. Still he finds himself in the same spot again, staring at the place where the walls of the two houses meet, staring at what’s missing.

He knew it the first time but didn’t want to admit it. He knew what was happening as soon as the house failed to appear. He’s been locked out. Harry’s changed the wards.

This morning, when he found out Harry had closed his Floo, he wasn’t surprised or even alarmed by it. Harry does this often, when he’s in a bad mood, or when he’s feeling depressed or overworked, or when he just needs some time alone without unannounced visitors dropping by his house. No, it’s when Severus tried to Apparate to Grimmauld Place that he realised something was wrong. When he felt himself hitting a wall and was immediately sent back into his own sitting room.

 _That’s_ when the fear was born, when the dread started growing. Now it’s threatening to bloom into panic.

It’s been three days. Long enough for the both of them to unwind, for the dust to settle so they can see clearly and attempt to mend things as well as they can. They’ve fought before, this is nothing new. It isn’t even the first time Severus has been given the cold shoulder as a result. But never before today has Harry been so rash in his avoidance of him. Until now, there’s always been an opening, small as it may have been. There’s always been an opportunity for reconciliation until now.

Quite frankly, Severus thought Harry would come forward first. He’s always been the less stubborn out of the two of them, though he gives Severus a run for his money most of the time. And the less of a coward, the most likely to swallow his pride. He thought Harry would just drop by after work on Tuesday. Sneak into the laboratory, insert himself between Severus and his work to wrap both arms around his waist and bury his face into Severus’ neck. His usual silent offer of truce. When that didn’t happen, Severus thought he would wake up on Wednesday morning to find him sitting at the kitchen table, trying to finish the crossword before he could get at it in an effort to impress, but inevitably failing and annoying Severus to no end, because he would have to erase all the wrong answers and start over.

But there’s been none of that. No Harry for three days. No sign of him since he stormed out of Severus’ flat in the middle of the night, tears of anger streaming down his face, saying he was never coming back.

They’ve fought before, yes. Many times. Countless times in the last few months alone. They get angry and say things they don’t mean. More often than not, they say things they _do_ mean and pretend to forget about later, when they finally make up. Except they never really make up in the proper sense of the words. They end up fucking and holding each other silently, never explicitly saying they’re sorry, never making amends, somehow individually deciding not to mention any of it again. They pretend it didn’t happen, that the horrible words were never said. They cauterise the wound without disinfecting it first, never quite soothing the pain. Until it resurfaces again days later in a new fight. Until the wound reopens again and again, never completely healed, never properly treated.

Three days and Severus has finally come to terms with the fact that it’s not up to Harry to come to him, that the truce is _his_ to offer this time. Because even if Harry also said some nasty things that night, none of them compare to the words that found their way out of Severus’ mouth. And he would be lying to himself if he pretended that guilt hasn’t been creeping up on him since then, if he pretended that he doesn’t still see Harry’s tear-filled and devastated expression every time he closes his eyes.

Last night he started thinking of ways to make it up to Harry. He thought of stopping by that bakery Harry loves and pick up pastries. A full box of them. Then he considered perhaps venturing out into Muggle London to fetch him one of those horrendous, syrupy coffees that cost a fortune, but that Harry absolutely adores, though Severus would barely call it coffee. He even thought about buying flowers, because he knows Harry would surely take the piss if he saw him standing there with a bouquet. And there’s nothing more Severus wants after three long, miserable days than to see Harry laughing and to know that everything is, if not forgiven, then forgotten. At least for a time.

But eventually, lying alone in his cold bed, Severus had decided against all of that. No amount of pastries or coffee or flowers can erase what happened this time. No grand gesture, no matter how thoughtful, can fix this. No, this time, the only solution is to go to Harry, sit down with him, and talk things over like adults. He needs to tell Harry he’s sorry for everything and that he doesn’t want to lose him. He’s tried to rehearse something, to find the right words and put them in the right order, but every time it all ends up jumbled in his head. He can only hope that when the moment comes, he will say what needs to be said. Three days of sleeping without Harry’s warm body next to his is as much as he can bear.

He thought he could catch Harry before he left for work. He couldn’t bear the thought of going through another full day of this, of not hearing Harry’s voice, of not seeing Harry’s face. Of not touching him, not being touched by him.

He couldn’t bear another day without being disturbed by one of those Ministry owls tapping at his laboratory window, carrying another one of those notes that contain nothing of importance but Harry’s ramblings about work, or a lewd joke he heard from a fellow Auror and just couldn’t wait to share with him. Or sometimes, a note of another nature entirely. The sort that makes Severus shiver and turns his mouth dry. The sort he hides away before Ainsworth can see it even though she’s nowhere near him at the moment. The sort he now has a drawer full of, safely tucked away, and rereads sometimes when the day is too long.

Yes, he thought he could settle the whole thing this morning, or at least clear the air enough that he could spend the rest of today out of his misery. He’d left Ainsworth a note saying he had business to attend to and might be a little late and that she should open the shop without him. And he’d reasoned that it wouldn’t matter if Harry was late for work either. Since he has everyone in the Auror Department eating out of his hand, there would be no consequences for him if he failed to show up on time for his morning briefing. Severus had even hoped for a quick fuck after they’d talked. He’d suck Harry off and then take the boy right there on the old kitchen table.

But all these possibilities fade away as he stands alone on the street facing the spot where 12, Grimmauld Place should be.

He’s angry now. At himself. For thinking it would be easy.

When is anything _ever_ easy with Harry?

There’s a Muggle approaching him now, with caution on his face. He’s holding onto a little girl’s hand and no doubt wants to enquire as to why this strangely dressed, tired and angry-looking man has been pacing the sidewalk for the last half hour. He must live in one of the nearby houses and probably thinks Severus is some sort of madman or predator and wants to chase him away and ensure his child’s safety.

Severus doesn’t give him the time to reach him. He stalks away, furious and humiliated, until he can find refuge in a narrow alley and Apparate back to his flat.

Ainsworth raises her head sharply when he comes downstairs later, around noon. She pauses for a brief second, eyes widening, either at his extreme lateness or at his disgruntled appearance, or at both, before handing Mr Wilkins his spare change for the bag of ground dittany leaves he’s just purchased.

“Ha, Severus,” the old man begins when noticing his presence. “I was just telling young Marnie here that those viper scales I bought last week were absolutely–”

Severus doesn’t hear the rest of the sentence. The voice is muffled and quieted as soon as the heavy door separating the backroom laboratory from the shop is shut. He sits down heavily and takes his head in his hands, listening to the silence. Out in the shop, Ainsworth is probably apologising to Wilkins on his behalf and about to escort him safely back to the Floo. Severus isn’t worried though. The old potioneer is familiar enough with his unfriendly attitude by now not to take offense.

A minute or so later, the door cracks open slowly, and Ainsworth asks, tentatively, “Everything all right, sir?”

“Go away,” he says without looking at her.

She doesn’t move. He can feel her standing there still, watching him.

“I told you to leave, Ainsworth. Go mind the customers.”

“There’s no one in right now, sir. Did something happen?”

Severus sighs heavily and finally lifts his head to shoot her a warning glare. “Nothing that concerns you. _Go away_.”

Still, she just stands there, watching him. Her curly blonde hair, which is usually all over the place, is held up loosely by a satiny, puffy sort of accessory in bright purple. Underneath her neat black apron, Severus can see she’s wearing an equally violently coloured t-shirt with a faded logo on the front. He’s about to comment on her unprofessional accoutrement when she speaks again, taking a few steps inside the room.

“Sir,” she starts softly, her dark eyes never leaving his face. “I know you’ve been struggling these last few days, and–”

“Stop right there, Ainsworth–”

“–but notice that Harry hasn’t come around, well, at all, and I–”

“–remind you that my personal life is none of your–”

“–if maybe something happened between–”

“Of course, something happened!” Severus growls coldly, viciously. “What do you _think_ happened, Ainsworth? We fought. We always fight. _That’s_ what happened. You should know, you’ve witnessed it more than once. We fought and I said something terrible, like I always do,” he adds, his anger fading, and he has to look away from her dark stare, which he knows will soon turn into pity. “I went to see him this morning. I want to fix it. I am willing to recognise that it’s my fault. And you know me, Ainsworth. You _know_ that’s not something I do.”

“Yes,” she says softly. “I know, sir.”

“I shouldn’t have said what I said, and I want to make things right, but he’s locked his bloody Floo and he’s changed the wards on his bloody house. How am I supposed to apologise if he won’t let me speak to him? I’ll just go back there tonight and force my way through the wards and make him listen–”

“Oh no, sir! No, don’t do that!” Ainsworth intervenes, cutting his tirade short. “I mean…” she adds slowly when he glares at her. “I mean… you shouldn’t go back…”

He’s about to snap at her again, to scold her for trying to tell him what to do, when he realises something.

“I shouldn’t go back,” he repeats slowly. “No, I would only look desperate! I shouldn’t have gone in the first place! What was I thinking, heading there this morning? This is what he wants, isn’t it? That’s why he’s doing this. He wants to make me suffer, to make me pay for what I said, to get back at me!”

“Sir, Harry isn’t like that–”

“Yes, that’s what he wants, I know it! Maybe he was even watching me! He was watching me trying to get into the house! Oh yes, I bet he was staring out the window, laughing his head off. He’s only doing this to manipulate me. I know what he’s up to! He’s not leaving me any choice. He wants to force me to make a grand gesture in front of the whole fucking Auror Department. He wants to humiliate me, to make me grovel at his feet! You’re right, I shouldn’t give him the satisfaction–”

“That is _not_ what I meant,” she says quickly. “I only meant that maybe you should just–”

“Just _what_?” he snaps. “Maybe I should do _what_? Speak, Ainsworth!”

The girl takes a small step back at seeing his anger turn to her so quickly, but she doesn’t look alarmed, only hesitant. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s not my place to say anything–”

“And yet you _are_. Say what you want to say, idiot girl. _What_ , in your brilliant mind, should I do? Say it or get the hell out of my laboratory!”

She narrows her eyes, a deep frown forming on her face, and for a fraction of a second, Severus thinks she’s finally about to talk back, to snap at him for all the times he’s been a git to her. But then she’s shaking her head and telling him steadily, almost coldly, “Maybe you should see this as a sign, sir. If Harry really changed the wards, maybe he doesn’t want to see you anymore. I mean, that’s what it looks like to me.”

Severus stands up, peering down at her suspiciously. She holds his gaze for some time before, eventually, looking away to take a glimpse behind the door and make sure no customers have walked in while they’ve been talking. 

Severus sees right through this at once. If anyone had come in, the bell would have signalled it. She’s uncomfortable. She’s hiding something.

“What do you _know_ , Ainsworth?” he asks, staring closely at her reaction. “Did Harry talk to you?”

The girl turns back to him and shakes her head at once. “Of course not, sir. Why would he talk to me?”

“Are you not friends? You talk all the time when he comes by.”

She shrugs. “Yes, we’re friends, but not like that. And we talk, but not about you, sir.”

“What do you talk about then?” he demands.

“Nothing important. Quidditch, Diagon Alley gossip, and that stupid wireless show we’re both addicted to. Never about you, I swear.”

Grudgingly, he must admit to himself that he believes her. Harry is not the type to broadcast their personal problems for all to hear. Their strong desire to keep their private lives private is one of the only things they have in common, actually. It isn’t always easy, with Harry being who he is, but so far, they’ve somehow managed to make it work by only informing a small amount of people of their relationship. Harry hasn’t even come out openly yet, not to the press. _Fuck the press_ , he says every time someone close to him, most commonly Granger, points out that maybe if the tabloids knew for a fact that he’s already taken, they would stop making up stories about his supposed conquests and matching him up with any female who has the misfortune of standing anywhere near him whenever a photo is taken.

As friendly as Harry is with Ainsworth, he certainly wouldn’t tell her about their personal lives. Severus knows his anger is misplaced. He’s just looking for _anything_ at this point, any answer, any solution. The fear has turned into a sort of helplessness, and he feels so terribly tired all of a sudden. 

He sits back down, feeling his anger deflating, and he sighs deeply. “Should I just wait, then?” he wonders aloud, more for himself than for Ainsworth. “Maybe I should owl him, write him a letter. Even if he’s still mad, maybe he would read it…”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Ainsworth shuffling on her feet uncertainly. She says nothing, though he can tell by how tense she is that she’s just dying to speak up. Then, slowly, she slips a hand inside her apron and takes something out of the pocket.

“Sir, I wasn’t going to…” she begins before trailing off.

Severus looks at her, at what she’s holding. It’s an envelope, pitch black, with something written in silver on the front.

“I’m not supposed to…” she continues softly, “but… you have a right to know.”

“To know what?”

She doesn’t say anything more, only hands him the envelope. Upon taking it, Severus sees that it’s her name written on the front, in elegant calligraphy. Inside is a single piece of paper in the same dark colour, the words on it in the same silver handwriting.

_TO THE RECIPIENT ONLY_   
_Miss Ainsworth –_   
_Harry Potter has had Severus Snape erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again. Thank you._   
_– Fenton Alters, Head Obliviator, The Lethe Clinic_

Severus has to read the note at least three times to understand.

“What the… What the bloody hell is this?” he manages shakily through the tightness in his throat.

“I don’t know!” Ainsworth declares with some urgency in her voice, surely afraid he might explode any second. “I mean, I’m not sure. It’s this new thing the Obliviators just started, like a private branch or something. One of my friends mentioned seeing an ad a few weeks ago. I never thought it would really take off–”

“Erased from… Is this a fucking joke?” he snarls. “Are you taking the piss, Ainsworth?”

She shakes her head, eyes wide. “Of course not, sir! I got it yesterday. I didn’t know it was real. At first, I thought it might be a prank, but Harry wouldn’t do something like that,” she rambles on helplessly. “And then you said he changed his wards, so I thought maybe it was true. I don’t think I was supposed to show it to you because it says–”

“Where the fuck is that place?” Severus rages, his heart beating furiously in his chest. “The Lethe Clinic? Where the fuck is that?”

Ainsworth stammers, shocked. She’s probably never seen him this angry before, or never heard him swear this much. “Somewhere in Camden. There’s an address at the bottom.”

It’s there indeed, in tiny script at the very edge of the paper. As soon as he’s read it, Severus spins around so sharply he knocks a vial off the counter with his elbow and sends it flying across the room. Ignoring this, he rushes out of the laboratory and heads straight for the fireplace.

“Sir!” Ainsworth calls out urgently. “Sir, don’t do anything–”

“Mind the customers!” he barks before stepping into the Floo.

The fireplace at the other end is narrow and Severus bumps his shoulder on the hearth as he exits, emerging into a small waiting room. Three people are seated there in comfortable armchairs, two of them leafing through magazines and the third, a man around Severus’ age, just sits there with his hands folded onto his lap. He looks on the verge of tears. They all glance up briefly when Severus steps into the room, before resuming their silent waiting.

It looks like the basement of an old house. Apart from the few armchairs arranged around a small table of books and leaflets, there is a desk, behind which a pretty young woman with short brown hair is seated, scribbling something in a large book opened in front of her. Next to her, a magic quill is busy addressing a stack of black envelopes like the one he’s still clutching in his hand.

“Welcome to The Lethe Clinic,” the receptionist says kindly when she sees Severus approaching. “Do you have an appointment?”

Severus breathes deeply through his nose, fighting the urge to yell at her, to rage, to turn over the desk, to set the whole bloody place on fire. “I don’t,” he says gruffly. “I just want to talk to someone.”

She winces, but her face remains kind as she says, “I’m sorry, sir, we don’t take walk-ins. You need to make an appointment for a consultation.”

He clears his throat, breathing deeply again to hold on to the last shreds of his temper, and simply hands her the letter. “I’m Severus Snape,” he announces coldly. “I want to talk to someone. I want to know what’s going on.”

She takes the paper for a closer look. He watches as her smile falters. “Oh…” she says softly. “You weren’t supposed to see this. I’ll get someone right away. Just… wait here please.”

She all but scurries away, letter in hand, disappearing through a frosty glass door left of the desk. Severus waits there, the three people in the waiting room peering curiously at him now.

The girl returns barely a minute later. “Please take a seat, sir. Someone will be available for you very shortly,” she says calmly before settling back at her desk, carefully avoiding his eyes.

Severus sits in the nearest armchair, next to the miserable-looking man. She hasn’t given him back the letter, he realises, and he wonders what she’s done with it. A small part of him hopes Ainsworth won’t get in trouble for this. Then he remembers that Ainsworth _can’t_ get in trouble, because none of this is real.

_Harry Potter has had Severus Snape erased from his memory._

Severus tightens his jaw, breathes steadily through his nose. _No_ , he refuses to believe it. This is ridiculous. Harry wouldn’t do something like this, even if such a thing was possible. You can’t just get your memory wiped like this. This doesn’t happen, there are regulations. This is all an elaborate hoax. It _has_ to be.

What is even this place? It doesn’t _seem_ real. Surely these people are actors, and this receptionist isn’t a real receptionist. No, this is some sort of elaborate set-up. He doesn’t know how Harry managed to pull this off, but it _can’t_ be real. He must not let himself be overwhelmed. As soon as he gets to talk to whoever is responsible, they will reveal the deception. It will all be over soon. Harry will emerge from somewhere, laughing, and declare that Severus has suffered enough, that they’re even now. And life will go on as it did before.

His attention is caught by a stack of brochures on the table in front of him, and Severus takes one. Same pitch-black paper and silver writing as the letter.

_THE LETHE CLINIC was founded by former Ministry-Licensed Obliviator Fenton Alters as a private branch approved by the Great Britain Ministry of Magic’s Obliviators Office. The purpose of THE LETHE CLINIC is to provide safe, personalised, professional memory erasure for all witches and wizards at an affordable rate, in total confidentiality._

Severus throws the leaflet back on the table sharply, disgusted. At that moment, a man slips through the door near the front desk. He throws a quick glance at the people waiting, before shutting the door behind him and approaching the receptionist. He crouches next to her for privacy, but Severus, whose ears have years of experience deciphering the subtle mumbling of misbehaving students, easily catches their conversation.

“Hey, Eleanor, what’s this I hear about some obliviated bloke getting his hands on a notification?”

“That one in black,” the receptionist says with a barely perceptible jerk of her head. “Not obliviated. He’s the one who got erased. He found out the hard way.”

“Fuck,” the man says softly.

“I know!” the girl hisses. “I _told_ them we should put some sort of confidentiality spell on those bloody letters. Or make them self-consume afterwards, like they do with Howlers. But Beth was so busy choosing the bloody colour schemes–”

“What’s going to happen now?”

“I don’t know. Fenton said he would speak to him.”

Severus snorts, shaking his head. He has to give it to them, they’re good actors. Very dedicated. Where the hell has Harry found these people? Did he plan this in three days, or was this in the works for a while? Was he waiting for the next big fight, for the inevitable fallout, to unleash his master plan?

He doesn’t have time to speculate any more because the door opens again, and a tall man in his sixties walks in. He’s wearing a charcoal grey robe opened on top of an elegant three-piece suit. His salt and pepper hair is in elegant disarray, and he sports a short beard and a pair of gold, thin-framed spectacles. He sweeps the waiting room with sharp eyes, his gaze coming to rest on Severus at once.

“Mr Snape. Follow me, please,” he says professionally.

“I want to know what–” Severus demands as he approaches the man, but he’s quickly interrupted.

“I understand your concerns, Mr Snape, but let us go into my office and speak calmly there,” the man says politely, gesturing for Severus to follow him through the door.

He then guides Severus down a narrow and surprisingly long corridor, with many doors on either side. The man’s office is at the very end. _Fenton Alters, Head Obliviator_ , the sign on the door reads. Inside is a large oak desk facing two armchairs, and the walls are lined with shelves of books and scrolls. There is a small bookcase filled with unused and empty memory orbs, and in the corner of the room is a large Pensieve of polished marble.

“Have a seat, please,” Alters says, indicating to one of the armchairs before seating himself behind his own desk. Out of the pocket of his robe, Alters takes out Ainsworth’s letter and hands it back to Severus with a tired expression on his face. “I apologise, Mr Snape. You should not have seen this notification. Our regulations state that only the–”

“Oh, stop it!” Severus snaps. “Stop pretending. This is a hoax. You cannot do this for the public.”

Alters rubs his chin with a deep, annoyed sigh. “I assure you it is not a hoax. This is a private clinic offering–”

“No. No! This is a hoax, a scam. A bad joke. Harry would _never_ do this. I _refuse_ to believe it!”

Alters’ gaze softens now. He folds his hands on the table and regards Severus steadily, staring directly into his eyes. “Our files are confidential, Mr Snape, so I’m afraid I can’t provide you with any proof or any details regarding another client’s procedure,” he says gently but firmly, like a doctor announcing a terminal illness. “Suffice it to say that Mr Potter was unhappy with your relationship, and he expressed the desire to forget and move on. Fortunately for him, we, at The Lethe Clinic, provide that possibility.”

Severus shakes his head. This is a bad dream. It _has_ to be. He will wake up any moment now. Any moment.

“No… No, no,” he drawls, his voice coming out weak now, with none of the anger he felt at the beginning. “I refuse to believe it…”

Alters sighs, adjusting his glasses. He’s silent for a moment, then shrugs gently. “Whether you believe it or not, Mr Snape, the fact is that this is real. It has happened, and it is completely irreversible. I am truly sorry you had to learn about it this way. I really am. This situation is generally something we want to avoid, but our clinic is still in the early phases of its…”

Severus doesn’t listen to the rest of it. He can hear the words, but he doesn’t listen to them. He can’t. There’s a sort of contraption on Alters’ desk, a delicate glass sculpture with swirls of smoke in various colours dancing through it, and he watches as they move, as they intertwine and then separate. Blue and red into purple and then blue and red again. He just watches silently.

_Wake up, Severus. You must wake up. This is a bad dream. This is a bad dream._

But the room looks real, feels real. The armchair under him is real, the upholstery soft underneath his fingertips. The man in front of him is real, the way he scratches at his chin in annoyance, the way his pitying gaze remains on Severus as he talks, the words and the voice he uses to say them. All of this is real.

“–once more how sorry I am, Mr Snape, that you had to find out this way. It was my impression, my assumption, I suppose, that Mr Potter would inform you of–”

“Stop talking,” Severus finally says, his eyes never leaving the dancing smoke. “Just stop.”

He meant to snap at the man, to snarl, to rage, but there is nothing now. He feels nothing. Hollow. Vacant.

“Very well,” Alters adds with an understanding nod before standing. “Take a moment, if you need it. I will get Eleanor to escort you back to the Floo shortly.”

Severus doesn’t look at him as Alters leaves the room. He doesn’t react, he just watches the smoke as it dances. Blue and red into purple. And then blue and red again.

It’s nearing two o’clock when Severus steps out of the lift and into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He’s never been here before, not in this part, but following the signs, he quickly finds his way to the Department of Security and heads straight for the assistant, a curly-haired young man who looks barely out of Hogwarts.

“I want to talk to Granger,” he announces.

“Do you have an app–” the young man inquires, but Severus doesn’t give him time to finish.

“I don’t have a bloody appointment!” he snaps. “Nor do I want one. I want to talk to her now. Tell her it’s Severus Snape and it’s urgent.”

The young man huffs, and with a dark glare, he stands from his desk. Severus watches as he heads for an elegant wooden door, knocks softly and peeks inside. A moment later, he turns back, opens the door wider and gestures Severus to go ahead with a sort of disdainful smile.

The moment he walks in, he knows Granger’s been expecting his visit. She’s silent as he approaches her desk, but he doesn’t miss how her eyes are immediately drawn to the letter he still has clutched into his hand.

“They sent you–” she starts.

“They didn’t. Ainsworth showed this to me. Apparently, they were under the impression, no the _assumption_ , that Mr Potter would inform me himself,” he says dryly. “But we both know that it is not in Mr Potter’s habit to settle his affairs in any way that might be considered remotely responsible.”

Granger sighs, pushing a strand of hair away from her face. “Severus, I–”

“Is this real?” he demands, brandishing the letter, his voice strained by anger and the painful knot in his throat. “I need to hear it from you, Granger. _Is it real?_ ”

“It’s real,” she says softly. “I’m sorry, Severus. Sit down, will you? Would you like some tea? I can call my assistant–”

“No, I don’t want any bloody tea!” he snaps.

“Okay, no tea. _Please_ , just sit,” she coaxes gently, visibly unnerved by his behaviour, indicating to some armchairs.

Not knowing what else to do, or to say, he sits. Carefully, so as not to alarm him further, Granger stands from behind her desk and sits in the chair next to his instead. She seems unsure what to say for a long time. “You said they thought Harry would tell you,” she finally says. “Did you go there?”

“Yes. I went there. To that bloody clinic. It’s real,” he repeats, as if to convince himself still.

Granger nods. “I know it’s real. I know Fenton Alters,” she reveals softly still. “I’m the one who told Harry he should go.”

For a moment, Severus tries to speak but no words come out. He fixes his eyes on Granger instead, and she seems startled by his expression. He wonders what she can see on his face, because he can’t quite put words on how he feels exactly.

“ _You_ ,” he says tightly. “You did this?”

She shakes her head. “No, not _this_. I just thought they could help him… with the memories, and the nightmares. You _know_ he hasn’t been well since the war, Severus. And his job is only making it worse. What he has to deal with every day is making it worse. And he’s not well, he’s not coping, he’s not trying to get help. And I thought they could help him, I don’t know, forget about all that. About Voldemort and the battle and everything we lost. I thought maybe they could take away some of his guilt. I just wanted him to get better. We had a fight when I recommended that he go. He said I had no right, that it was his business, that he was doing fine, and had it under control. The drinking, you know. He said it wasn’t a problem.” She stops, takes a deep, shaky breath. “I didn’t know he would use it for that. For you.”

“So, it… it worked?”

“It worked,” she mumbles. “We got the letter yesterday morning. I couldn’t believe he’d done it, but Ron confirmed when he got home. Harry is… just like he was two years ago, before you got together. It’s like the two of you never happened…” she hesitates, conflicted. “But Severus, there’s something you should–”

“I know we fought, but…” he stops, not knowing what to say. “They said he wasn’t happy. I didn’t know he wasn’t happy. We fought, but I didn’t know. That’s what couples do, don’t they? Couples fight. And we have more reasons to fight than most couples, we’re so different. We argue all the time, but we make it work. Somehow. I thought we were making it work. They said he wasn’t happy, and he wanted to move on…”

Granger seems to want to reach out to him, but she doesn’t. Probably afraid that he’ll snap any minute.

“Why would he do this to me?” he asks weakly, not to her in particular.

She sniffs, rubs at her face. “Harry is like that, Severus. He’s impulsive. I’m sure he didn’t think this through. You know how he is… He wakes up, has a bad day, decides to erase you. That’s just another day for Harry.”

“I didn’t know he was unhappy. With me,” he adds.

“I didn’t know either,” Granger admits softly, and finally her hand comes to rest on his. “He doesn’t really… talk to us anymore. Not about his life or how he feels.”

Severus shakes his head, taking deep breaths, not letting himself get overwhelmed. “I’ve half a mind to just head over there and confront him about it,” he drawls.

“Don’t,” Granger warns at once. “Whatever you do, don’t do that. Don’t go see him. He doesn’t even… know you were together. There would be no use.” She seems about to add something more before she stops, breathes out shakily, and stands. “Listen, Severus, I have some work to do this afternoon. Come to dinner tonight, and we’ll talk some more. Just… don’t do anything stupid. And don’t go see him.”

He’s walking back to the lift when it happens. He’s not paying attention, staring at his feet, lost in his own misery, when he bumps into someone. Roughly.

“Shit! Sorry, mate. I didn’t see you there.”

Severus’ head snaps up at the familiar voice and his heart seems to stop in his chest for a second, paralysed.

Here he is, after three days. The grin, the messy hair, the gorgeous eyes.

Harry is here, right here, looking breathtaking as always in his fitted Auror robes. He’s carrying a stack of files, one of which he’s leafing through when they collide. It’s Harry alright, but the way his eyes fleet over Severus’ face, distractedly, with complete disinterest, before he walks away, confirms what Severus has been trying to deny all along. This is Harry, but Harry is not _his_ anymore.

The young receptionist, Eleanor, gasps in shock when he Apparates right in the centre of The Lethe Clinic’s waiting room.

“Mr Snape!” she barely has time to exclaim before he flings open the door leading to the offices and rushes into Alters’.

“I want it done!” he announces to a startled Alters, out of breath, his heart hammering painfully.

“I’m sorry sir!” Eleanor exclaims as she stumbles inside after him. “He just barged in! I tried to–”

“I want it done! Do it to me!”

“That’s okay, Mr Snape,” Alters says calmly. Having stood up in surprise at the intrusion, he approaches Severus and puts a steady hand on his arm. “Please calm down. We’ll do it, but you have to calm down.”

“But sir,” Eleanor stammers, “there are people on the list, we can’t just–”

“That’s okay, I’ll manage it myself,” Alters tells her reassuringly. “Please return Mr Snape to the waiting room for now and give him a form. Send him back to me when he’s done.”

Severus sits obediently with the piece of parchment the receptionist has him fill. His hands are shaking as he writes down all sort of personal information about his life, his health, his family history. Normally he would object, demand to know what they plan on doing with all this, but he fills it out quietly, eager to get things over with. He stands as soon as he’s done, and the receptionist escorts him back to Alters’ office. She hands the man the form and leaves the two of them alone, shutting the door softly behind her. Severus sits before being asked to.

“Very well,” Alters remarks, looking over the form with attention. “Very well,” he repeats before looking at Severus in this steady, serious gaze he has. “Now, the first thing we need you to do, Mr Snape, is to go home and collect everything you own that has any association with Mr Potter. I want you to dispose of anything you might have acquired during your relationship. Photos, clothing, gifts,” he enumerates. “Books he may have bought you. Objects you may have bought together. Any personal belongings of his that might be left in your home need to go. Journal entries about him, that sort of thing. You’ll want to empty your home and your life of his presence. Understood?”

“Yes,” Severus says softly, hands folded onto his lap, fingers clutched so tightly together it hurts.

“While you do this,” Alters continues, “I want you to really consider the implications of what you’re about to do. Many people change their minds at this stage, which is why we insist upon it being taken very seriously. Keep in mind that the procedure is irreversible. There will be no going back. What you will lose can never be recovered. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“When you’re through clearing your home, if you still want the erasure done, come back here and we’ll move on to the next phase. If you change your mind, simply do not return, and we will destroy your file in twenty-four hours. You need not communicate with us ever again. You need not execute any form of payment.”

“What is the next phase?” Severus inquires, curious in spite of himself.

“Using a special spell, we will create a map of your memories pertaining to Mr Potter as to thoroughly identify the parts of your brain that need to be erased.”

Severus frowns, scoffs with disbelief. “What is that? That’s not how memory spells work.”

“The procedure is not just a memory spell, Mr Snape. It is very thorough, very delicate magic. None of this basic wand-waving they do at the Ministry when a Muggle has the misfortune of witnessing a magical act. A magical mind works differently than a mundane, Muggle one. It requires care and attention. This is not only removal, but it implies replacement. We don’t want you to be aware of the parts of your memories that are missing. We don’t want you questioning anything. Your mind needs to fill in the blanks naturally, otherwise you might as well just end up in St Mungo’s. Our objective is no blind spots, no long-term confusion. The mnemonic mapping will allow us to individually identify every part of your brain that needs to be purged of memories, so that we do not damage the rest. Thus, allowing us to remove only your memories of the person you wish to erase, leaving everything else as is. If a memory is too deep, too anchored with others to be properly erased without causing significant damage, then it will remain, but be modified by something believable of your own making. After we’ve mapped out the memories, we will do the erasing in your home at night. It will take some time, and we like to do it during sleep, so that you’ll wake up in bed as if nothing had ever happened. With a new life awaiting you.”

Alters finishes with something of a triumphant smile, and Severus gets the impression that he ends every one of his speeches that way.

In order to avoid Ainsworth, Severus Apparates directly to the flat. Surely, she would try to dissuade him from doing what he’s intent on doing. And maybe she would even succeed. There will be none of that. He’s doing this.

He whips out his wand and decides to vanish things directly into the great bins out back.

First, on the landing, is the large plant Harry brought by one day, saying that the flat needed a bit of life and that this thing was completely impossible to kill, because he had one like it at Grimmauld and it thrived, even in the darkness of the sombre house. In the bedroom, there are some of Harry’s t-shirts and socks and a pair of pants. A picture frame holding a photo of the two of them at a small gathering at the Burrow, snapped by one of the Weasleys, catching them both unaware. Harry is smiling as brightly as the sun and Severus looking into his face softly. He vanishes it without regret, a burning fire filling his guts.

In the bathroom there’s Harry’s shampoo, Harry’s toothbrush. A thick, fluffy towel that, though it belongs to Severus, he has nothing short of appropriated for himself. Severus vanishes it too. The kitchen holds some ginger tea Harry has bought, a set of assorted teacups, a small stovetop coffeemaker, a Quidditch magazine he’s left on the table. In the study there’s Harry’s radio, some records, and an old Weasley jumper draped over the back of the sofa.

And that’s it. That’s all of it.

Severus thought it would take longer than that. He thought there would be more things. Harry always seems to leave his things everywhere, a fact Severus often remarks on, and after two years, he thought there would be more traces of Harry in his life.

All the better then. All that’s left is inside his head now. Now he can go and get that removed as well. Let all this be over with.

Eleanor seems surprised to see him back so quickly as well. She tells him to sit, that Alters is busy at the moment.

“While you wait, please fill this out,” she says, handing him a new form. “We need the names and addresses of the people you want notified that you have had your memory erased. List as many as you want. The letters will be delivered the morning after the procedure.”

Severus nods and gets to work. Here as well, the task is quick. Granger and her husband. The Weasley parents and everyone else living at the Burrow at the moment. There is Narcissa. And Draco. Fuck Lucius, he will know eventually, not that he ever cared. Then there’s Ainsworth. He jots down his own address for her letter. She has the annoying habit of getting all her mail delivered to the shop anyway.

Alters is still not ready for him when he’s finished with the list, so Severus waits.

The lady sitting next to him is quietly sobbing, clutching the picture of a dog in her hand. _Fucking cunt_ , Severus thinks in disdain. Here he is, about to voluntarily forget the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and she’s bawling over a bloody dog.

“You can go on now, Mr Snape,” Eleanor says suddenly, and he looks up to see her holding the door open for him.

When he enters, Alters is waiting patiently, his wand ready on the desk.

“Mr Snape, please have a seat. Make yourself comfortable, we might be here a while.”

In front of him is the form that Severus filled earlier, containing all his personal information and the questions he’s answered about what he wants from the procedure.

“Now, did you do as I asked? Did you dispose of everything associated with Mr Potter?” the man asks seriously.

“I did. There wasn’t… It was fast.”

Alters nods, stares at him intently from behind his gold spectacles. “And are you absolutely certain you want to go through with this?”

“I am,” Severus rasps. “I just want it to be over.”

Alters nods once more, takes a quick glance at the form and clears his throat. “Before we begin with the mapping, we need to determine which of our services is adequate for your needs. For a situation such as yours, we have two different packages to offer. Partial erasure, or comprehensive removal. Now the cost is considerably–”

“I don’t care about the cost. What’s the difference?” Severus finds himself asking, though part of him knows already.

“Well, let me put it this way. With clients in situations such as yours, since you’ve known Mr Potter for such a long time, you need to decide if you only want to forget the…” he pauses, looks at the form again, “two years during which you’ve shared a–”

“Or his entire existence?” Severus interrupts rudely. “Is that what you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Forget that we’ve even met? That I’ve ever seen him? That he ever existed?”

“Yes,” Alters repeats.

For a fraction of a second, Severus wants to stand, reach over the desk, grab Alters’ head and smash it into the desk, or into the wall, or into the floor, or anywhere that might make bone crack and blood pour. Severus wants to hurt him for implying such a possibility. But he finds himself asking, instead, voice terribly tight in spite of himself, “Which one did _he_ choose? Did he… did he forget me completely?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say, Mr Snape. This procedure is about _you_ , and what you think is best for you.”

He knows, of course. Severus knows which one Harry chose. The way his eyes glazed right over him earlier, the way his face showed no reaction whatsoever. No, _Professor Snape! How long it’s been! How are you?_ Just nothing. Like Severus was just a stranger he’d walked past. It all makes sense. And maybe he knew before he even witnessed it, before he knew it with certainty.

 _But Severus, there’s something you should…_ Granger had started to say before he interrupted her. That’s what she wanted to say. _There’s something else. It’s not just your relationship he’s forgotten about. He’s erased you completely. He doesn’t remember you at all. He doesn’t know who you are. Don’t go confront him, because it will destroy you…_

 _Harry Potter has had Severus erased from his memory._ He hadn’t realised until now exactly what that meant.

“I want the whole thing,” he says softly, all his anger gone now. “Just take it all.”

“Very well,” Alters declares, jotting something down on the form before taking a small vial out of his desk drawer. “You mentioned here that you are skilled in Occlumency. _This_ will make my job easier, and make it less painful for you,” he says, handing Severus the vial. “It will allow the mapping spell to pass through your defences undetected and take proper hold. Drink up.”

He must be completely mad, Severus realises as he uncorks the potion. He must be absolutely out of his bloody mind to drink an unidentified concoction some stranger just handed him, to willingly allow someone to penetrate his mind. He almost calls the whole thing off right then, but the numb pain in his chest, the memory of the vacant look in Harry’s eyes when he bumped into him earlier, of everything that has happened since this morning, prompts him to just get it over with.

_Harry Potter has had Severus erased from his memory._

Severus drains the vial. The liquid is cold and tasteless, like a sip of pure water.

Alters stands and picks up a memory orb from the small bookshelf before placing it on a small stand on his desk.

“The orb is simply for our files,” he explains. “It will record our conversation and then be stored away for confidentiality. We will keep it for six months, and then it will be destroyed.”

Severus only nods. He can see his own reflection in the orb, a black, distorted shape.

“Now,” Alters announces, standing up. “I will start the mnemonic mapping. It is a spell of my own making that took years to develop. It is painless. You might feel some dizziness at various moments, but most clients don’t even feel a thing.”

“And then what?”

“Then we will talk. I will ask you some questions, you will answer them, and the spell will simply do the work it is meant to do. I want you to answer naturally, without too much probing. The spell will do the probing. Simply answer as it comes to you, recalling particular memories if you want, or only impressions or personal thoughts. We are looking for raw, stream-of-consciousness sort of recollections. It’s important that you don’t force anything. You can rant if you want, you can be explicit or vague. Just let it come to you as it does. Say what you will. This is completely confidential. And don’t mind the orb. Are you ready?”

Severus only nods. Let it all end. Let this fucking nightmare end.

The spell is wordless and completely painless. If Severus wasn’t so familiar with mind magic, if he hadn’t spent years studying Legilimency and Occlumency, if he wasn’t so used to having his mind invaded by the most powerful wizards, he’d think nothing had happened at all. But he feels it, a slight flutter, like an itch. It’s there for a few seconds and then disappears.

Alters taps the orb, bringing it to life, before sitting back behind his desk. “For the record,” he starts, and lights inside the orb shimmer as they capture the sound, “please state your name and the name of the person you wish to erase.”

“My name is Severus Snape, and I wish to erase Harry Potter.”

“Tell me about him,” Alters simply says. “What comes to your mind first?”

Severus tries to do as the man explained, to let his thoughts flow. He doesn’t probe, doesn’t start from the beginning. He only talks about Harry, his character. And he knows his anger, his despair at these events make him say horrible things, but he doesn’t care. Alters told him to let everything go, to be honest and just say what he wants to say. So, that’s what he does.

He doesn’t know how long he speaks. He doesn’t know if he’s ever spoken for so long before, in his entire life. He’s certainly never revealed anything so personal to anyone else before, and he can’t help but be relieved that he will soon forget all this. Eventually, he trails off. His words are harder to find, harder to put in order, and he pauses.

“Now, tell me how you met,” Alters says patiently.

“I’ve known Harry since he was a child,” Severus starts again, and he’s sure his voice sounds raw now, but he keeps talking still. “I knew his parents from my school days. His mother was my very first friend. We grew up together. His father used to torment me. We weren’t on good terms when he was in school, Harry and I. He was a rebellious, reckless child with no regard for rules, constantly endangering his life and that of the people around him, the people trying to protect him…”

He goes through it all. All he can remember of Harry from the time he met him, the first time their eyes met across the great hall, through all those years watching the boy and trying to keep him safe only to discover that all of this was simply so Harry could die when it was convenient. He talks and talks until he ends up on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, bleeding, and Harry’s hands are pressed to his neck and he’s yelling something, and everything goes black.

“I nearly died that day, but he saved my life. Somehow, he managed to call Dumbledore’s phoenix and the tears healed the wound on my neck. There’s scarring, but I lived. I left Hogwarts after that, and once everything was settled with the Ministry, I opened up my shop in Diagon Alley. I saw Harry once at my trial, but I didn’t get to speak to him, what with all the commotion. Then I didn’t see him again for five years, except in the papers, but I know not to believe anything those rags say. That’s when I got invited to this party, this celebration for the fifth anniversary of the end of the war, in Cornwall. And I met Harry there again…”

He tells it all, what happened next. The way Harry had changed and how unsettled Severus was to realise that he was attracted to this young man he used to loathe. The way those feelings were reciprocated and how they’d miraculously decided to give this thing a try. And everything that came after. The good times, but mostly the fighting. Always the fighting. Until he ends up to this moment, and he falls silent.

“Very well,” Alters declares, turning the orb off with a wave of his wand. “The mapping spell made good progress. It will continue to do so until we remove it after the procedure.”

“Tonight?” Severus asks hopefully.

Alters shakes his head. “I’m afraid that with comprehensive removal, the spell needs longer. We will perform the procedure tomorrow night. It is safer that way. We will start erasing with the most recent memories and work our way backwards from there. All of our memories, especially if pertaining to one person, are linked, but they share an emotional core, and when you eradicate the memories, eventually the core starts disintegrating. By the time you wake up on Saturday morning, all the memories the mapping spell has targeted will have withered and disappeared.”

“Isn’t there a risk of brain damage?”

“Technically, the spell itself is brain damage. But we are very accomplished in our field, Mr Snape. Fear not. As I said, anything important will be replaced in due time with something of your own making, something you’ll believe. You may experience some residual recollections in the twenty-four hours or so following the procedure, but the resulting confusion will be on par with a night of heavy drinking, and your mind will fill in the blanks.”

“I don’t drink,” Severus informs him.

Alters smirks and fetches a large bottle of whisky from his desk drawer, but it’s filled with a clear liquid. “Tomorrow night you will have to. This is more of the potion, mixed with a sedative. It’s important that you drink all of this. Otherwise we won’t manage to perform the procedure.”

Ainsworth has closed the shop and is long gone by the time Severus gets home. It’s dark outside and the flat is biting cold. He’s been Apparating and walking in and out of the Floo all day without bothering to wear his winter cloak, but he puts it in while waiting for the flat to warm up and he makes some tea in the kitchen.

He’s pouring the water into his cup when the sharp sound of a beak against the window startles him. He opens to find Granger’s owl presenting him with a neatly rolled up scroll.

_Severus – I waited for you at dinner. I hope you’re okay. I’m sorry about all this. Know that you can talk to me if you need to. Please don’t do anything stupid. – Hermione_

He sits and drinks his tea, fingers curled tightly around the old, chipped mug.

_Harry Potter has had Severus Snape erased from his memory._

Now that he’s alone, that there’s no one else to witness it, Severus breathes shakily in and out, and allows a sob to escape his throat. Anger and pain are mixed together so tightly now he can’t differentiate one from the other. They’ve formed a heavy mass in the pit of his stomach.

_Shit! Sorry mate, I didn’t see you there._

He shakes his head, trying to forget this moment. Trying to forget the disinterested glance, the casual tone, the lack of recognition. He never thought such an expression could bring him so much pain. All through the years, Harry has looked at him in a hundred, in a thousand different ways. With anger, with joy, with fury, with bliss. But never like this. He’s seen Harry’s face bear all the emotions in the world, has tried to capture them too, in drawing…

It occurs to him then. The drawings! His journal. He forgot to throw them away. Alters said _everything_ , even journal entries.

His tea forgotten, Severus heads down the stairs and into the laboratory. It’s pitch-black and he waves his wand at the lamps, filling the room with a soft golden glow.

Ainsworth must have cleaned up the vial he broke this morning because there’s no trace of it now. She doesn’t seem to have touched anything else. She knows better than to meddle in his lab, thank Merlin.

He takes his journal out of the first drawer and then unlocks the second, the one with the notes. There must be hundreds of them, collected over the years. Harry doesn’t know, _didn’t_ know, but he’s kept them all. Each and every one.

 _Most boring meeting in history. I’d rather be sucking you off_ , one says.

 _Thinking of you… You looked so hot this morning_ , another says.

 _Missing you. Come over tonight and I’ll cook_.

_Can’t wait to be done. Let’s take a long hot shower together._

With a wave of his wand and his heart in his throat, Severus sets the contents of the drawer on fire. In seconds, with a puff of smoke, all the notes are gone, as are the ashes they turned into.

He’s had the journal for five years. Amongst the drawings of Harry and the entries about Harry, there are notes on potions and lists of clients. This he can’t set on fire. He rips the pages out, one after the other. Harry drinking tea. Harry asleep, hair mussed up and beautiful. Harry chopping up roots in the lab. Harry asleep, cheek pressed adorably into the pillow. Harry staring into space as he listens to the wireless. Harry asleep. Harry. Harry. Harry…

Before Severus knows it, he’s standing up and hurling the journal at the wall. It collides with a loud smack, startling in the silence of the room. But Severus doesn’t stop there. With uncontained fury, he swipes at the counter, throwing everything to the floor, vials and bottles and brewing instruments. Then he attacks the shelves, rips them from the walls with surprising force, sends them flying across the room. He grabs at plants and uproots them. He grabs ingredients and smashes them. He rips drawers out and breaks them. He screams, a raw sound like an animal in agony.

Then he sits in the middle of it all, in the mess on the floor, and he sobs his heart out.


	3. FRIDAY - comprehensive removal

* * *

**3**

**FRIDAY**

_comprehensive removal_

* * *

Severus doesn’t sleep. He lies awake all night, curled-up fully dressed on top of the covers, crushing the pillow against his chest as if it’s the only thing keeping him from falling apart. The pillow where Harry’s head would rest, his messy, ridiculous hair getting in Severus’ mouth and eyes as he tried to sleep. Whenever he complained about it, Harry always snorted in annoyance, reminding him that he should just get a bigger bed. But two years and Severus could never get around to it. The truth is, he’s never really minded the narrow bed so much, never minded being pressed up against Harry. He’s never minded Harry’s hair. None of it really bothered him, so why did he have to pretend? Why is he like this? Why can’t he just say what’s on his damn mind? Why do the words stay stuck in his throat? If only he could learn to say what he knows in his heart is true, what he _knows_ he feels, maybe he wouldn’t be in this situation now.

He stares at the spot on the bedside table where that picture frame was. It’s gone now, replaced by the bottle of whisky filled with potion, but he can still see it. He can still see Harry’s smile, and he chokes back a sob, reminded that he will never see it again. But it doesn’t matter. By tomorrow morning, he won’t know what he’s lost. He won’t even remember that smile. He’ll wake up as if nothing had ever happened, like Alters said. With a new life awaiting him.

And yet it’s not too late. He can stop this if he wants to. Does he really want this? Does he really want to forget everything? To forget that smile, that laugh, those eyes. All the kisses. The looks, the touches, the moans. There were fights, yes, but there were good moments as well. It’s not too late to stop this.

But he _can’t_ stop this. The mapping spell is still there, working through his head. Severus imagines it like some type of worm crawling in his brain, gnawing at the grey matter, at the flesh, feeding. Or maybe it’s travelled further than it was supposed to and has reached his chest. Maybe that’s what this tightness is, this heaviness, this cold weight around his heart.

No, he won’t put a stop to this. He needs it. He just wants the pain to end. Better not to know. Ignorance is better than this torture.

Lying there in the silent flat, he can hear chatter coming from the shop, and the customer bell ringing once in a while. The creaking of the floors, the door opening and closing. The sounds of the register. Voices, loud or soft. Sometime around noon, about the time Ainsworth is in the habit of munching on a sandwich while leafing through a magazine at the counter, Severus hears her hesitant footsteps on the stairs. They stop halfway and retreat. Clever girl. She doesn’t want to see this. _He_ doesn’t want her to.

It’s late in the afternoon by the time Severus drags himself out of bed. On the landing, he finds himself unconsciously walking around the large plant that’s no longer there. In the kitchen, he tries to make tea but loses interest before the water’s done boiling, setting the kettle aside. Outside the window, the sky is dark and overcast and it looks like it might start snowing any moment.

Unconsciously, like he does every morning, Severus moves the rubber plant to the corner of the counter so it can catch some stray rays of light. It occurs to him then that he’s been taking care of a potted plant better than he’s ever taken care of Harry. Maybe he should have tried harder to figure out what Harry needed… Maybe Harry needed to be moved into the light more than this fucking thing. Severus grabs the side of the pot but stops himself before he can throw it against the wall. He’s done enough damage to the lab yesterday. And there’s enough broken things in his life already.

When he comes downstairs, Ainsworth, thankfully, doesn’t make a big deal of it. “Sir, we’re out of doxy venom,” she informs him. “I wanted to get some from the lab but it’s–”

“It’s locked, yes. I’m brewing something volatile, and it needs to rest awhile. Leave it be. Did anyone ask for venom?”

She shakes her head. “No, I just wanted to replenish.”

“If anyone asks, tell them we’re out for today,” he says shortly, heading for the door.

“Yes, sir. Is everything al–”

“I’m going out now, Ainsworth,” he announces, pointing out the obvious.

“Yes, sir,” she says softly, and lets him go without any more questions.

He heads out into Muggle London. It’s long been a comfort for him, wandering freely somewhere no one knows him, somewhere no one frowns at him. He needs comfort now more than ever. He’s feeling restless, anxious. He’s feeling light and empty, like he could be carried away by anything heavy and powerful. Like he’s hollow inside. He feels like he doesn’t have a grip on anything, let alone his own life, his own existence. Everything is out of his control. The events of the previous day have crashed into him like a storm, and he’s tried to hang on but ended up swept away with all the debris.

He buys pyjamas from a fancy shop. He usually sleeps naked, curled up around Harry. He can’t very well sleep naked tonight, with those people in his home. He’s already decided to sleep in the study instead. He doesn’t want strangers intruding on his bedroom, on his private space, his safe place that only Harry ever deserved to know.

The day goes by too fast and too slow, like it does when you spend it waiting for something you’re looking forward to and dreading all at once. One minute, time drags infinitely, and the next it’s gone by without you noticing. By the time he returns, Ainsworth has locked up the shop and gone home, and everything is silent and still. It’s dark outside already. It’ll be time soon.

It occurs to him that he should have handled the mess in the laboratory. Will he remember, in the morning, what happened to it? What will he think of it if he doesn’t? But Severus finds himself realising he doesn’t care in the least what happens tomorrow. He won’t be the same man tomorrow as he is today. The Severus he is now, the one inside his head at this moment, will not exist in the morning. Let tomorrow’s Severus, let the stranger deal with the mess in the laboratory. Let _him_ figure it out. This Severus, here, now, doesn’t care about any of it. He just wants the pain to end.

He retreats upstairs and changes into the pyjamas. He grabs the bottle of whisky and takes it into the study. There’s already a pillow and a blanket ready for him on the old sofa. He lights a fire and settles as comfortably as he can.

He waits. There’s this tangled knot in his throat that aches when he breathes. He doesn’t know if it’s nerves or everything else.

When it’s finally almost time, he grabs the bottle, drains its contents, and leaves it on a corner of the desk. The potion works fast. The sedative mixed into it brings a sudden wave of dizziness. They’re probably outside already, waiting for him to fall asleep so they can come up and do their job. He’s meddled with the wards so they can come in and get out without trouble. He only has to wait a little while now. It’ll all be over soon. He’s very tired. The potion is–

Severus startles awake. The flat is dark, with only the lamp in the study and the one on the landing casting dim, golden light. He’s fallen asleep at his desk.

_I’m at the desk… Why am I at the desk? Wasn’t I on the sofa a second ago? How did I get here?_

There’s a terrible noise coming from the staircase, as if someone has fallen violently. And then some cussing. Severus shoots to his feet, already furious.

_Oh… this is it. It’s happening. I didn’t think it would be like this… Am I supposed to be conscious of this? Is this normal? This is so strange. How can I be inside and outside of myself at the same time? Is this a dream? It feels like a dream, but so much more vivid, and yet so vague all at once. It’s like being inside a Pensieve but standing inside of myself instead._

Harry is lying on the stairs, rubbing at his shoulder, a grimace of pain on his face.

_I remember this night. This is the last time I saw you. The last time you were mine._

“It’s three in the bloody morning,” Severus snaps, staring down at his miserable form. “Where have you been?”

“Had a pint with some blokes from work,” Harry drawls, struggling to get to his feet, half tangled up in his winter robe.

Severus is livid, so angry his hands are shaking. “Did you just Apparate like this?”

“I’m fine,” Harry says, annoyed, as he brushes past him, stumbling slightly. “Just a bit tipsy.”

Severus grabs his arm, looks closely into Harry’s face and is met with eyes unfocused, lips already curled into a sneer. “You’re not _tipsy_ , you’re completely drunk! You could have splinched yourself, you reckless twit!”

Harry frees his arm roughly. As roughly as he can manage with the little coordination he has left. “Oh, don’t start,” he drawls nastily, walking away towards the bedroom.

Severus doesn’t let him off so easily. Shaking with anger, he follows him into the room, berates him as Harry struggles with the clasp on his cloak. “I waited up for you. I thought something bad had happened. Why didn’t you owl to tell me you were going out? Why didn’t you Floo over? Why didn’t you call? I could have come get you–”

Harry laughs dryly. “Come get me? Oh, I bet you’d have _loved_ that.”

_I shouldn’t have said any more. I should have stopped right here. I should have let it go. I know it’s no good arguing with you when you’re like this, but I just had to keep going, didn’t I? I just had to pick a fight. I couldn’t wait until morning and speak about this calmly._

“You’re pathetic!” Severus spits out viciously.

“Don’t fucking call me pathetic, you prick!” Harry growls, forgetting all about his cloak and rounding on him in anger.

“You’re pathetic and careless and irresponsible! When is this going to stop, Harry?” His voice is filled with anger, but there is fear there too, and desperation.

Harry is growing more furious by the second. Even as drunk as he is, he knows where this is heading. Where it is always heading. “ _What?_ When is _what_ going to stop?” he insists, daring Severus to continue.

“The drinking,” Severus says, almost softly. “You’re destroying yourself–”

“Why do you always have to be such a fucking nag?” Harry retorts, turning this against Severus at once, as he always does. “You’re just mad because I was out late without you. You’re just jealous.”

“Why in the world would I be jealous?” Severus sneers. “There’s nothing in this world I would dislike more than having drinks with you and your idiot friends.” He says this disdainfully, the anger turning him hateful. It’s always the same now. It’s not even so bad this time. It’s been so much worse before, but it’s so repetitive, so predictable that it takes nothing to put him on the edge. He feels raw and open and ready to explode at the slightest jab.

Harry snorts so derisively, his eyes filled with such contempt it’s like a bloody slap in the face. “You’re just scared I’ll get bored and let someone else fuck me,” he rasps scornfully.

_No. Make this stop here. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to live this again._

Severus’ voice is quiet as he says it, but the cruelty is so blatant it’s a wonder it’s words and not growls that come out of his throat. “You mean you haven’t already? Consider me surprised. Isn’t that how you get people to like you? It’s the only way, isn’t it? What else have you got to offer if not a good fuck? I can’t imagine anyone could see anything else of value in you.”

_Oh god… I didn’t mean it. I was just upset. I was just scared. I didn’t mean it…_

He sees it on Harry’s face. What he’s just said are exactly the words Harry has been dreading all this time. Severus is good at this, at finding insecurities and poking at them. And as he says those words, he knows they will hurt more than anything else he could possibly say to Harry. He watches as Harry’s eyes narrow, not entirely with anger, but to hold back tears.

“Fuck you,” Harry says brokenly, but he only stands there, paralysed.

The shakiness in his voice, the look of pure betrayal in his eyes is what snaps Severus out of it. “I didn’t–” he begins.

“Don’t you fucking say you didn’t mean it! I know you meant it, you arsehole!”

Severus reaches out, the seriousness of what he’s just said hitting him like a freight train. “Harry, don’t–”

“Fuck you! I’ve got enough of this shit!” Harry cries out, storming out of the bedroom and down the stairs, stumbling with every step, hands gripping at the walls to keep him from falling.

Severus follows after him, heart beating madly in his chest. “Harry! Wait!”

“Fuck you! I’m not coming back!”

_You could never listen. You could never just stop and listen to me. You always had to be dramatic about everything, didn’t you?_

“Fine!” Severus rages as they both emerge into the darkened shop. “You want to go, then go! I won’t stop you! I don’t need this in my life!”

“I don’t fucking need you either!”

“Then bloody go!” Severus screams. “We’ll both be better for it!”

“Fuck you!” Harry cries again, tears streaming down his face now.

The shop is getting darker and darker, and Harry’s silhouette disappears through the door and into the street. Severus rushes after him, anger coursing through his veins like lava. The door breaks as he slips through it, the walls crumble. The cobblestones under his feet split and turn to dust.

“Look at this!” Severus cries after Harry’s vanishing shape. “It’s all falling apart! It’s all going! And you’re going too! You did it to me first!” he yells accusingly in the disappearing street. “I can’t believe you did this to me!”

The street has all but vanished now. And Harry’s silhouette is long gone.

“It’ll all be over soon!” Severus cries out into the darkness. “Can you hear me? You’ll be gone by morning!”

He’s falling. Or floating. Sights and sounds and colours speed by so fast he can barely recognise them, barely make sense of them. It’s like tumbling through a tunnel, like being carried away by a current, like being pushed underwater without being able to resurface. Memories rush by, like a Muggle videotape on rewind, until finally everything stops, and the scene drops around him.

The music is annoying, constant and repetitive, and Severus has a headache. Not just from the music, but from _all_ of it. The colours, the lights, the chatter and laughter. He hates this. He wishes they’d stayed home, just the two of them, and settled comfortably with tea and cakes. He wishes they were anywhere but at the Burrow, surrounded by Weasleys and all this ridiculous festive décor. He bloody hates Christmas.

One of Bill Weasley’s toddlers is tugging at his sleeve insistently. When Severus looks down at the offensive creature, she holds out a hand, begging for him to fix the horrendously pink mitten that’s all askew on her miniscule hand. Severus grumbles but does so wordlessly and she rushes back outside without the slightest thank you, to join with the other monsters playing in the snow.

A moment later, Harry’s arm slips around his waist and he feels the boy’s chin pressing into his shoulder.

“Do you ever think about having kids?” Harry asks fondly, close to his face. His breath smells of peppermint, but Severus can’t tell if it’s from tea or liquor.

He sighs, rubs his throbbing temples. “Can we not talk about this now?”

“I know you hate kids,” Harry says, coming around to face him, arm still around his waist, “but I’ve always thought–”

“I don’t hate kids.”

Harry smirks softly, hair still mussed up from when he’s pulled that awful knitted sweater over his head. “Could have fooled me,” he teases.

“Can we _please_ not talk about this here?” Severus repeats, exasperated already, focusing on the horrible garment Harry’s wearing – green with a poor imitation of a reindeer – instead of looking into Harry’s eyes.

“Why don’t you want kids?” Harry reiterates.

_Why couldn’t you just let it go? Why did you have to probe? You knew why I didn’t want kids. You knew what I was afraid of. You only wanted to hear me say it, didn’t you? You always wanted me to open up, to tell you these things, but you knew that I wasn’t ready, that I might never be ready. And yet you always insisted, always forced me into these bloody situations. And I always fell into your bloody traps._

“I’m too old for kids,” Severus says shortly, hoping to put a stop to this assault.

“No, you’re not,” Harry says simply. Then, more softly, “Is it because of your–”

Severus interrupts him, tries a different strategy. “I never said I didn’t want them. I just don’t think we’re ready.”

Harry smiles, has the nerve to look amused at his misery. “You say you think you’re too old, then you think we’re not ready. If we wait, you’ll be even older then.”

Severus shakes his head, hisses the next words softly. “Harry, stop it. I don’t want to talk about this here.”

Harry steps back then, frowning, crossing his arms over his chest, a sure sign that he’s ready to retaliate. “You mean _you’re_ not ready. You’re not ready to commit to me is what you’re saying. Because having kids means committing–”

Severus huffs, irritated, and that’s when he says it. “Do you really think you could take care of a child?”

_Oh Merlin… How do I get out of this one? I don’t want to see this again… Can we please skip this one?_

Harry is quiet. For a second he has this look of incredulity, as if he can’t quite believe Severus has actually said this, and then his face falls. “What?” he asks softly, confused.

Severus feels the cold spread inside his chest, and the warmth to his face. “For the last time, I don’t want to talk about this,” he hisses.

“What the fuck do you mean I couldn’t take care of a child?” Harry hisses back furiously.

“That’s not what I meant, Harry,” he snaps. “I don’t want to–”

“No, _no_!” Harry rages. “We’re fucking talking about this! You can’t just say something like that and say you don’t want to talk about it!”

“I didn’t say it like that,” Severus insists, but he knows it’s no use.

“I’d make a bloody good parent!” Harry cries out, his voice breaking. “I love children! I’m good with Teddy!”

A concerned voice comes from behind them as Arthur Weasley emerges from the kitchen. “What’s going on, boys?”

“I never said that–” Severus protests.

“You _did_ say it!” Harry accuses, his eyes now filled with tears of anger. “I fucking heard you! What are you now, gaslighting me? You said it!”

There’s a hand on Severus’ shoulder now, but he can’t see anything other than Harry’s crying face. “What’s the matter–”

“You know what the problem is? It’s you, Sev! It’s you who can’t fucking commit to anything! Because you’re scared! You’re a fucking coward!” Harry accuses furiously.

“Don’t you bloody dare–” Severus snarls.

“What the _hell_ is going on?” comes Ronald Weasley’s voice as he comes up behind Harry.

“Two years we’ve been together!” Harry continues, completely ignoring his friend, eyes set on Severus as if no one else exists in the world. “And you haven’t even asked me to move in yet!”

“Why do you _always_ have to cause a scene?” Severus yells, half embarrassed half ashamed.

Harry is fully crying now. “Why do _you_ always have to be such a git? Can’t take care of a child? Who says things like that? You’re so fucking cruel!”

_Please make it stop… Please make it stop…_

He doesn’t know how he does it, or if he has anything to do with it, but everything stops. The scene cuts abruptly, and Harry’s furious, devastated face disappears. Severus is floating again, falling away through the sights and sounds.

“You never tell me anything,” Harry says softly.

The morning light is streaming through the window of the bedroom at Grimmauld Place. Harry’s bed is much bigger than the one in Severus’ flat, and yet they always end up pressed up against each other as if there wasn’t any space. Harry’s skin is soft and warm against his, Harry’s fingers gentle as they slip through his hair, caressing his scalp. Severus wants him to stop speaking so he can go back to sleep. Sleep is right there. He only wants to fall back into it.

“I always tell you everything,” Harry continues, and Severus feels his voice reverberate through his back, all along his spine. They’re so close it feels like his own. “Every bloody thing that happens to me, I tell you about it.”

“Mmmm,” is all Severus can manage.

“Don’t you trust me at all?”

“I trust you,” Severus grumbles, on the very edge of sleep.

“Why don’t you talk to me then? I share everything with you.”

Severus sighs. It’s too goddamn early to start this. Why can’t Harry shut up once in a while? Why can’t they just be here together and be silent and happy?

“I want to _know_ you, Sev,” Harry mumbles, lips pressed into the nape of Severus’ neck. “People have to share things, you know. That’s what intimacy is, it’s not just about fucking.”

“I don’t think my thoughts would be of… any interest to you,” Severus manages, voice heavy with sleep.

“Why wouldn’t they? Are you saying I’m _stupid_?” But Harry doesn’t sound upset. He’s teasing.

_Merlin… I loved you like this. Light and peaceful. Not an ounce of anger or defiance in you. Playful and happy. Sober. If only you could have been like this all the time…_

“I didn’t say that. I’m saying that I… I have no thoughts.”

Harry chuckles, a soft breath that makes Severus shiver. “What are you always writing about in your journal if you have no thoughts?”

Severus sighs again. He turns around, reaching out and pulling Harry closer still, grabbing the boy’s head and pressing it into the crook of his neck. “Be quiet,” he grunts. “Just stop. Go back to sleep.”

Harry relents, going limp into his arms, allowing himself to be held. His lips find the scarred skin of Severus’ neck, press a soft kiss to it. Severus closes his eyes, ready to let sleep take him again.

_Not this one. Let me keep this one…_

They’re having dinner. The food is tasteless and bland on Severus’ tongue. He could be eating dirt and dead leaves and it wouldn’t make a difference. His anger keeps him from tasting anything. He watches with scorn as Harry pours the rest of the wine into his glass.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Harry reproaches without even raising his eyes, already angry.

“I haven’t said a thing.”

“What’s wrong _now_?” Harry snaps. “What did I do _now_? Can’t we just have a nice evening without you scowling at me for once?”

Severus snorts dryly, the anger a burning lump in his throat. “Can’t we have a nice evening without you getting pissed?”

“Makes looking at your face easier,” Harry says with disdain.

They’re in Severus’ bedroom now. He’s holding Harry against him, caressing his back gently, cradling him, almost like a child.

_I remember this… Merlin, I remember that day. Weasley firecalled me, asking me to come get you. He’d managed to get you home, but he didn’t want to leave you alone. I was furious at first. I thought you’d gotten drunk on the job again and that he was covering for you, but that wasn’t it._

_Your squad had been called to a house in Oxfordshire that morning. You’d found a dozen corpses in the basement, ripped to pieces. Some cooperative dark magic spell gone wrong. You were half covered in blood when I got there. You couldn’t talk, you couldn’t walk. I had to give you a bath. You threw up twice. You cried. All I could do was hold you._

Harry is quiet now. He’s not shivering anymore, but he’s gripping Severus’ shirt tightly. They’ve been lying here, like this, for hours. It’s dark outside. It must be the middle of the night already.

A quiet sob escapes Harry’s throat, muffled into Severus’ chest.

“Shhh,” Severus mutters gently. “It’s over. You’re okay now. Don’t think about it.”

“Don’t go,” Harry cries out softly.

Severus kisses his forehead, holding him tighter still. “I’m not. I’m not going anywhere. I swear.”

“Please don’t ever leave me, Sev.”

“I won’t.”

“I love you.”

_I loved you too. Why didn’t I say it back?_

The bed slips away under him, the walls darkening even more. Harry slips away.

_No… no, not yet… Not yet! It’s going too fast!_

Harry’s laughter echoes on the beach, the sound getting lost in the roar of the waves, and his face highlighted by the Cornwall sun is so beautiful Severus can’t look away.

“Look, it’s our house!” Harry cries out when the blue shape appears in the distance. “Let’s go visit our house!”

He grabs Severus’ hand, dragging him away, but the sand melts under Severus’ feet, the crashing of the waves already fading.

_Wait! It’s too fast! Let me see this! I want to see this one last time!_

They’re in bed again. Harry is drenched in sweat and sobbing and clinging to him.

“I don’t want to die. Don’t make me go. Please, don’t make me. I don’t want to die,” he cries, over and over, like a litany.

Severus holds him, rocking him gently in his arms. “Shh. It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re safe, it’s over. I’m here. I’ll never leave you.”

_Stop! Stop it! Please stop it!_

“Sev, are you happy? With me, I mean?”

Harry’s breath is warm on his cheek, coming out in wisps in the cold air. The stars above are countless and beautiful, spread out throughout the whole of the sky. Severus doesn’t know where to look.

“I am,” he admits softly.

“What are you thinking about?” Harry mutters. “Tell me?”

“Nothing. I’m thinking about… nothing. I am at peace. I am…” He swallows thickly, avoiding Harry’s eyes are he says it. “I am exactly where I want to be.”

Harry’s hand slips into his, and he slides even closer, warm against Severus’ side. The ice under them is thick, but there is always this fear in Severus’ guts, this fear that it’ll fall apart and that they will be swallowed by the water. And yet he can’t help thinking that if it were to happen now, it wouldn’t matter. He would die happy.

“Show me which constellations you know?” Harry asks, snuggling into his shoulder.

Severus smirks. “Didn’t you learn that in school?”

“Yeah,” Harry concedes, “but I don’t remember. I want _you_ to tell me.”

When Severus turns to look at him, Harry is gone.

He sits up, startled, looking around frantically, but he’s alone on the frozen lake. The lights of Hogwarts in the distance are going out, one by one. Darkness is closing in.

“Stop!” Severus calls out helplessly. “I want to call it off! I’ve changed my mind! Please! Can you hear me? I don’t want this anymore!”

“Sev? What’s wrong?” Harry’s voice sounds nearby, but Harry is nowhere to be seen, and then suddenly he’s there again, his hand is inside Severus’ again, but his image flickers in and out of existence.

“We have to go!” Severus cries out, dragging him to his feet. “We have to stop this!”

They take off running, though he doesn’t know where he’s heading, where he’s leading Harry. He’s running but he’s not running. There is nothingness and undefined shapes. Harry fades in and out of existence.

“Where are we going?” he demands, confused.

“I don’t know! But we have to go! I can’t let them take you!”

Severus runs, drags Harry with him, holding his hand tight. Things fall apart around them, scenes and memories, undefined and all mixed up.

“You can’t stop it, Sev,” Harry says, so close and yet so far. “They’re in your head already. This is happening whether you want it or not. It’s too late now.”

When he turns again, Harry is gone. His hand is empty.

“Fuck…” Harry swears under his breath, arching into him, pulling him closer.

Severus startles, jerking away.

What’s happening? Where are they? Oh, they’re in the meadow. The one near the Burrow. It’s summer now. Around them, the trees and the grass are glowing with sunlight.

“They’re erasing you!” Severus says desperately.

Harry frowns, confused. His lips are swollen and his eyes hazy with arousal. He’s lying on his back under Severus, hair messy with twigs. “What are you talking about?”

What is he talking about? For a second, Severus doesn’t know, and then it comes back to him.

“I hired them!” he announces. “It’s my fault! I’m an idiot!”

He pulls away, shaking and afraid. The meadow is bright and peaceful all around, so vivid it doesn’t even feel like a memory. He can feel everything. The grass under his body, the sunlight on his skin. He’s painfully hard inside his trousers. If he hadn’t stopped this memory, they would have fucked right here in the forest. He remembers that’s what’s supposed to happen. He doesn’t even know how he’s doing this, how he’s managed to stop it.

“Sev? Calm down, would you? You’re scaring me,” Harry says softly, grabbing his hand.

But Severus can’t find his breath. Fear beats inside him like a second heart. “I need them to stop! I need them to stop before I wake up and I don’t know you anymore.”

Harry looks confused. He’s silent for a moment, and then he says, almost casually. “Okay, well… call it off then.”

“I can’t call it off!” Severus protests. “I’m asleep! I don’t know how!”

Harry sighs, running fingers through his hair, and Severus can’t help but looking down at him fondly. He has this irritated air he always gets whenever he’s horny and they get interrupted.

“Wake yourself up,” Harry suggests with a shrug. “Just concentrate and try to open your eyes. Like you told me to do when I’m having a bad dream.”

At a loss, Severus decides to humour him. He shuts his eyes tightly, breathing steadily, and opens them again. “Nothing is happening.”

Harry scoffs. “You barely tried. Come on! Try Occlumency. Just push them out.”

“It won’t work!” Severus argues. “They gave me a potion so I couldn’t use it.”

“Come on, just try again!”

Severus does it again, sighing in frustration. This time, however, when he opens his eyes, he isn’t in the meadow anymore. He sees the study, smells the familiar smells of the fireplace and the old leather sofa. There are voices nearby, arguing. But he can’t move. He can’t do anything.

“It worked!” he tells Harry a second later, when he’s once more kneeling in the long grass. “Just for a second, but it worked! I couldn’t move or speak, but I did it.”

Harry grins, looking proudly at him. “Now what?”

The knot is back in Severus’ throat. He shakes his head helplessly. “I don’t know.”

He reaches out, caresses the side of Harry’s face, tracing the edge of his smile. “You erased me first. That’s why I’m doing this. That’s why this is happening. Why would you do that?”

Harry blinks, confused for a second, and then he smiles softly. “I’m sorry. I clearly didn’t think this through. You know me,” he says, leaning into Severus’ hand, cupping it with his own. “Foolish Gryffindor and all that.”

They’re in Grimmauld Place again, cuddled on the sofa in the den. Severus pretends he’s concentrating on the book he’s holding, but he’s mostly looking at Harry’s naked thigh, at Harry’s knee, at Harry’s bare foot half dangling off the edge of the sofa.

“I’ve got an idea,” Harry announces, sitting up.

“What?” Severus asks distractedly, letting his eyes caress Harry’s leg, fighting the urge to throw the book to the side and press his lips to the pale flesh.

“This is a memory of me, right? This is the day you fucked me on the floor because I was wearing your shirt and that turns you on.”

“I remember,” Severus says, his throat dry. And indeed, here Harry is, dressed in nothing but his shirt, half unbuttoned and too big for him, and as soon as Severus looks at the whole of him, he wants to crawl on top of him and devour him.

“And the Obliviators are coming here to erase me, right? So why don’t you take me somewhere else? Somewhere I don’t belong. And we can hide there until morning. They’ll never find us!”

Severus shakes his head, forces himself to look away from Harry’s naked collarbones and to stare into his face. “I can’t remember anything without you,” he says softly, and it’s true. For the moment, it’s true.

Harry smiles gently, flattered. “Just try.”

Severus shuts his eyes, concentrates. It’s raining outside. He concentrates on that, letting the sound transport him. All of a sudden, it’s raining inside too, thick, warm drops falling all around them. Harry gasps, delighted, and when Severus opens his eyes again, they’re not in Grimmauld Place anymore. They’re in Cokeworth, in a narrow alley, under an overcast sky. Severus is seven years old, dressed in a too large raincoat and old rubber boots. Harry is standing next to him, still dressed in his shirt, barefoot in the street. He’s drenched from head to toe, but he’s smiling as brightly as the sun.

“It’s working!” Severus tells him, full of wonder, in his little boy voice. “What do we do now?”

“You’ll remember me in the morning, and you’ll tell me about us, and we’ll start over–” Harry explains, simple as that, but he doesn’t have time to finish.

There’s yelling, furious and powerful, coming ever nearer. Severus turns to see his father just as he reaches them, his hand raised, ready to strike. Everything turns black.

“What the fuck?” someone cries out. “Something’s not right. The spell is way off track!”

Severus’ eyes snap open. There are people staring down at him, eyes wide and horrified.

“His eyes are open! Bloody hell!”

“Has this happened before?” a familiar voice asks to his left.

“I don’t know! I wasn’t watching him the whole time!”

Severus can’t tell which one of them is speaking. His eyes are open, but he can’t move them. He can only see the ceiling and strange shapes in the periphery. He’s short of breath, his chest tightening every second.

“This is bad! This is really fucking bad! Give him more potion! Quick!”

Someone is pouring something down his throat. Severus tries to fight it, but he can’t move. He can feel the tears sliding down his cheeks, warm and thick.

_Please stop it! Please stop. I don’t want this anymore._

_Please don’t take him from me. He’s all I have._

Someone forces him to swallow. The liquid runs down his throat, tasteless but burning. Everything goes blurry again.

He’s sitting on the old sofa in the study, fingers stroking through Harry’s hair gently, absent-mindedly. He’s lost in his thoughts, barely listening to the voices coming from the wireless, used to ignoring that bothersome show Harry never fails to listen to on Friday nights.

“Oh, oh, oh!” Harry exclaims, half laughing. “She’s about to find out he’s been pretending to be his brother the whole time! Sev, listen to that! Oh, this is gonna be good!”

Severus snaps into action, his heart giving a sudden lurch. “It didn’t work! They’re still erasing you!” he shouts, jumping off the sofa and pulling Harry to his feet. “Come on! Let’s go!”

“Hey!” Harry cries out indignantly. “Stop it! I want to hear what happens.”

“There’s no time! Come on!” Severus drags him away, running out of the room and down the stairs. But they’re not in the flat anymore. They’re in the street.

And then they’re nowhere. They’re running but they’re nowhere. There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.

“I don’t want to run anymore, Sev! Stop!” Harry begs.

“He’s resisting the fucking spell again!” someone says in the distance, voice drifting through the darkness.

“Should we stop?”

“We can’t leave him half done!”

“Calm down everyone. He’s skilled in Occlumency, that’s all. It’s just a tough one. They can’t all be easy. We’ll get him back on track. Keep it going…”

“Quick, Harry! Quickly! Before they catch up!”

“It’s no use running, Sev! Hide me somewhere! Hide me deeper!”

“Deeper?”

“Somewhere really buried.”

“You little SHIT!” his father shouts. “OPEN THIS BLOODY DOOR!”

“I’m sorry…” Severus whines out through the sobs, but there’s no way his father could hear him with all the racket – not that he would even care about any form of apology if he did. “I didn’t… mean to…” he hiccups.

The bedroom door finally gives, and the chair is sent hurtling across the room. There is silence, just for a moment, and then Severus gasps in panic, raising his arms to protect himself at the unmistakable sound of his father darting for the closet.

Just as the door is yanked open though, everything stops. There is only the sound of his panicked breaths and the loud pounding of his heart.

“It’s okay, Sev,” Harry’s voice says softly, right into his ear, as a warm hand closes around his own. “He can’t hurt you. It’s just a memory.”

“Got it!” a voice says, more distantly now, triumphantly.

Harry’s face in the darkness, glowing. He’s smiling lovingly, holding up a small cake adorned with a single candle. His eyes are shining.

“Happy birthday, Sev,” he says softly.

Then he disappears.

Harry is kissing him, sloppily, messily, arching into him as Severus thrusts harder. Harry moans, loud and beautiful, grasping at Severus’ shoulders.

Then he disappears.

Memories fly by, too fast to catch. Severus tries to hang on, to grasp Harry and hold onto him, tries to keep him close, but he can’t manage it.

_Stop it! Stop it! Slow it down! Please, slow it down!_

“You ever think about what it would be like if we were to meet now for the first time?” Harry muses, breaking the silence.

Severus lifts his head to find Harry watching him curiously.

“Keep chopping,” he says, and Harry shakes his head but smiles as he obeys. “What do you mean?” Severus asks then.

Harry shrugs, but he keeps to his task, the knife moving fast and steady as he slices the large root. The daylight coming through the laboratory windows make his eyes shine a brighter green. “If we didn’t know each other and we met now, I mean,” he explains.

“That couldn’t happen.”

“Come on,” Harry coaxes, “use your imagination.”

Severus snorts. “I don’t have one of those, you know that.”

Harry laughs sharply. “Let’s say, for instance… if you’d never gotten the job at Hogwarts. We wouldn’t know each other.”

“What else would I have done? I don’t think anyone other than Dumbledore would have been eager to hire a Death Eater.”

“ _Former_ Death Eater,” Harry corrects, before sighing in frustration. “Fine then, if I’d gone to another school.”

“That wouldn’t have happened either,” Severus says dryly. “Why are you talking about this?”

Harry is silent for a while, then he shrugs. “I don’t know,” he muses. “I just wonder sometimes. If we didn’t have so much history between us, I think maybe we would have gotten along better, right from the start.”

Severus doesn’t say anything more. He concentrates on his task and decides not to give this anymore thought. What use would it be?

_I disagree. Merlin, why didn’t I tell you? Why didn’t I tell you right then, that getting to know you, really getting to know you, being proven wrong, that was the best thing that ever happened to me._

_We never talked about the past. Why could we never talk? This, right here, this moment, is probably the closest we ever got. It’s almost as if, after all these years, when we met again, we had this unspoken agreement not to mention old scars. Maybe that’s why we crashed and burned. Too many things left unsaid. We should have talked._

_I should have told you everything. I should have made you listen. I should have told you that all those years, I never hated you. You were just a child. I only hated the situation you put me in. I only hated how scared I was the whole time. How powerless I felt._

_Wait… If we didn’t have so much history between us, you said…_

_Is that why you did this to us?_

Severus is in bed again. In his own bed, small and cramped and cold. But it’s not cold this time. Harry’s body is moving under him, burning hot. Hot and soft and sweaty. Severus is just about to consume from the heat, from the thrill of it. Harry is loud, and each of his moans echo through Severus’ ribcage until it shakes the foundations of his soul.

_This was our first time._

Harry grasps at his hair as Severus thrust hard and deep, and he wails into Severus’ mouth, gasping like someone about to drown. But when Severus looks into his face, he’s smiling.

_I was a ghost… I was a ghost before I found you._

_Will I be a ghost again once you’re gone?_

He knocks sharply on the door of Grimmauld Place before stuffing his shaking hands back into his pockets. He almost hopes no one is home, but he can’t help the relief when the door opens, revealing Harry Potter’s face. There’s flour on his left cheekbone, and his t-shirt is completely ruined. Severus has obviously caught him in the process of destroying his kitchen.

“Good morning,” Severus greets, throat tight and trying not to look nervous.

“Severus,” Harry responds, raising an eyebrow in surprise before wiping dirty hands on the front of his shirt. “I wasn’t expecting to see you… well, anytime soon, actually.”

“If this is a bad time–” Severus begins, but Harry cuts him off.

“No, no, I was just… baking,” he says, grinning at the obvious statement. “I thought you were mad at me, or never wanted to talk to me again. Let alone see me. You left so fast, I–”

“I’m not mad, no,” Severus admits, trying not to look away from the boy’s face. “And I wanted to see you.”

Harry’s mouth curls into this lovely smile of his. “Yeah?”

“I would like to take you out,” Severus announces. There’s no need to hover or make excuses. He’s decided forwardness is his best option today. “If you would be up for it, of course.”

There’s a hint of doubt on the boy’s face. “Are you sure about that?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t,” Severus assures him.

Harry wipes his hands on his shirt some more, but Severus recognises it as a nervous gesture. He leans heavily on the doorjamb, looks at Severus with a frown but with complete honesty. “Look, Severus,” he says softly, “if you’re not absolutely sure, _completely_ sure, if you’re just going to run off again, forget about it. I don’t do things halfway. I like you. I made that obvious enough. But if you want to be with me, you have to _be_ with me. You have to be sure.”

“I _am_ sure,” Severus insists.

“It’s happened so many times,” Harry continues, eyes never leaving his, “people have wanted to give it a try because I’m famous and they think I’ll make their life interesting. And then they’re disappointed and I scare them away when they realise I’m not the perfect little hero the press talks about, and I’m just like everyone else and I come with loads of problems–”

“Do you think I don’t know that already?” Severus interrupts, but he keeps his voice steady, and he keeps looking into the boy’s eyes. “I know that you’re not perfect. I don’t want perfect. And you _would_ make my life interesting. Not because you’re famous. I don’t care about that, I never did. You know that. Just because you are… who you are. You don’t scare me,” he finishes.

Harry’s smirking now, conspiratorially. He looks almost amused, a fond look in his eyes.

“That’s when I knew I got you,” Severus says, reaching out to caress his cheek. “When I said that.”

“Yeah. That’s when you got me,” Harry repeats softly. “When you said that.”

Severus cups the boy’s face, stepping closer, pressing their foreheads together. The house is fading already, the door dematerialising, the porch vanishing into thin air.

“You saved my life,” Severus mumbles. “It took me a long time to realise it, but you saved it. Twice, that is. That night in the shack. And then this day right here. You saved me in so many ways.”

“You saved me too,” Harry says gently, wiping a tear from Severus’ face.

“I would be different if we could just give it another try,” Severus assures him, his voice small and broken. “I swear I would do things differently. I would talk to you. I would tell you… I would _tell you_ every day.”

Harry pulls away, looks at him lovingly in this way only Harry has ever looked at him, but when Severus goes to kiss him, he’s already gone.

He’s sitting alone. Far from the crowd, there are wooden steps half buried under the sand, leading to a small gravel road. Severus sits there, watching the waves, watching the gathering. He took some food, because they forced him to. There’s a small paper plate on his knees, filled with all sorts of things. He has to hold on to it with both hands to stop it being carried away by the wind. There’s a silhouette apart from the others, alone, walking near the waves. He keeps watching it, can’t tear his eyes away.

_This is the day. This is when I saw you again, after five years. Sitting here, I could just make you out in the distance. I remember my eyes being drawn to you before I even recognised you. I remember thinking how odd it was, being drawn to someone’s silhouette. It was so strange that I didn’t recognise you at all. You had changed so much._

“Professor Snape.”

Harry Potter is sitting next to him. He looks older, which is understandable. He’s a young man in his twenties now, not the teenager Severus has known. He’s an Auror, and he carries himself that way as well. He has a sort of grace that he never had as a child, and a fascinating presence. He doesn’t wear his glasses anymore, and his eyes are brighter than Severus remembers. Older as well. Older than the rest of his face.

“Mr Potter,” he acknowledges.

Potter grins, and it does something absolutely lovely to his mouth. Severus forces himself to look away at once. “You can call me Harry now, you know.”

“Then you can call me Severus, I suppose,” he tells the boy, eyes fixed on the waves in front of him. “Seeing as I’m no longer your teacher.”

_Merlin you were beautiful. I was shocked by how much. I was completely unprepared for it. You were so different from what I remembered._

“I saw you from the beach,” Harry says, “sitting here, all by yourself. I thought that was you, but I wasn’t sure. Before I even recognised you, I thought, Thank Merlin, someone normal who doesn’t know how to act at these things either.”

Severus can’t help it, he smirks. “I would have thought you’d go to the big celebration at Hogwarts.”

“Fuck no,” Harry says, laughing. And it’s the first time Severus has ever heard the boy swear. It twists something in his guts, not entirely unpleasant. “Not a chance. Not this year. I’ve run out of speeches three years ago. I was glad when this became an option.”

“So was I.”

_I was completely speechless. I didn’t understand what was getting into me. You were completely oblivious to it. Or were you? You’ve always been cleverer than you let on._

“That looks good,” Harry says, jerking his chin at the plate of food on his knees. “Can I have a piece?”

 _And then you just took it, without waiting for an answer. Normally I would have been upset, but I couldn’t even muster that. I was completely disarmed by you. What you’d just done felt so intimate. Like we were already lovers_.

They sit there for a long time, watching the waves crash, watching the children run in the distance. The rest of the world seems so far away.

“This is it,” Harry says after a long silence. “Everything we’ve had. It’ll all be gone soon.”

Severus nods. “I know,” he simply says, his throat too tight to say any more.

Harry’s gaze is still fixed on the horizon, the grey sky casting a shiny, silver glow on his irises. “The same thing happened to me, you know,” he says weakly. “They were barely in when I realised what a huge mistake I’d made. I fought it too, with everything I had, but I couldn’t stop it. I’ve always been shit at Occlumency.”

Severus’ voice is barely a whisper when he asks, “What do we do?”

Harry shrugs helplessly, but when he turns to Severus, still his mouth curls in that lovely, familiar smile. “I don’t know. We should try to enjoy it, I think.”

They talk and talk, and they walk on the beach, further and further, until they’re far out of sight of the others. They talk, catching up. And they laugh. And night falls around them.

The house is blue with white shutters. Harry runs towards it, dragging him along. Harry, his face glowing from the light of his wand, insists they break in. Amazingly, without understanding how or why, Severus lets himself be convinced.

In a dark corner of the living room, as the light from the moon filters through the windows, with nothing but the silence of the empty house and the roar of the waves, Harry Potter kisses him.

“We should go,” Severus protests when Harry heads up the stairs to explore the first floor. “This isn’t right.”

“Come on,” the boy coaxes, turning to grin at him. “Where’s your inner Gryffindor? I’m sure you must have one somewhere. Or… actually this is a pretty Slytherin thing to do, isn’t it? Did you know the hat wanted me in Slytherin?”

“You’re an Auror, couldn’t you get in trouble for this? This is breaking and entering,” Severus reminds him.

The boy shrugs. “This is clearly a Muggle house. They’ll never even know we were here. No one will know. This is _our_ house tonight,” he grins before dashing up the stairs.

Severus can only stand there, his heart beating hard in his chest. The floor under his feet feels unsteady. He’s sinking into it, sinking in the sand.

“We should go!” Severus calls out. “It’s fading!”

“It’s fading because this is where your memory ends,” Harry’s voice sounds through the house, echoing. “This is when you left.”

_You’re right. I did leave. I thought you were mad. I didn’t know you anymore. You weren’t the one I remembered, and I didn’t know how to act around this new you. This grown-up, beautiful, fascinating you. Merlin, you were so exciting. You made me feel alive. You made me blush, for fuck’s sake. For the first time in five years, I felt my heart pounding, my blood rushing. I’d been so miserable before, stuck in a rut, in boredom. I never felt alive until I met you again._

“I wish you’d stayed,” Harry calls out in the distance, his voice coming from somewhere upstairs, but from somewhere within as well.

“I wish I’d stayed too. I wish I’d done so many things differently.”

The water from the beach is rushing in now, where a wall has fallen. Darkness is closing in, the moonlight fading.

“I came back downstairs and you were just gone,” Harry says reproachfully.

“I know!” Severus calls out helplessly. “I walked away and joined the others at the fire.

“Why did you go?”

“I don’t know. You were intimidating. I felt like a scared child.”

Harry laughs, brightly and beautifully. “You were scared? Of _me_?”

“No… I just… I thought you knew that about me. I’m a coward,” Severus explains. “I was scared of what you made me feel, so I left.”

“Well… what if you stayed this time?”

“I can’t,” Severus protests, his throat dry and eyes tearing up. “I can’t take it back. I can’t undo it. I already left once.”

The house is crumbling around him, the rooftiles slipping and breaking on the ground. Severus is knee-deep in sand and sea water, at the foot of the stairs.

“Can’t you stay just a little bit? Just to say goodbye. At least we’ll have goodbye.”

Suddenly Harry is there again, his face half-drowned in shadows, half-flooded with moonlight. Severus reaches out to grab onto him, sinking deeper and deeper in the sand.

“Goodbye, Sev.”

“I love you,” Severus chokes out around a sob.

Harry’s lips are on his, and then there’s only darkness.

It’s all downhill from there. It’s so fast once Severus stops fighting it. It comes in flashes, like skimming through a book, like a stone skipping on water.

“Look… at… me…” he whispers, short of breath as the venom clouds his vision. Wide green eyes meet his and everything goes black.

“Let me find the boy. Let me bring you Potter,” he begs the Dark Lord. “I know I can find him, my Lord. Please.”

He wants to hit the old man. He wants to hurt him. “You have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment?”

He’s throwing Potter across the room, body shaking with fury. “You will not tell anybody what you saw!”

Potter is on his knees, screaming. “NOOOOOO!”

“Get up!” Severus snarls. “You are not trying, you are making no effort.”

“You’re pathetic!” a thirteen-year old Potter is yelling at him in the shadows of the Shrieking Shack. “Just because they made a fool of you at school you won’t even listen–”

Severus looks down at the boy, smirking with disdain. “Clearly fame isn’t everything.”

Bright green eyes across the great hall. Harry Bloody Potter. Severus doesn’t know how he will manage to get through the next seven years.

“Her son lives,” Dumbledore says softly. “He has her eyes, precisely her eyes.”

“I can’t pretend any more,” Lily says. “You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.”

“You’re… you’re a witch,” he whispers to the redhead girl.

It all stops.

First is the sound of retreating footsteps and the muffled, distant slamming of a door. Then Severus startles awake.


	4. SUNDAY - unanticipated revelations

* * *

  
**4**

**SUNDAY**

_unanticipated revelations_

* * *

Waking up next to someone is an unfamiliar thing. Not entirely unpleasant, but such a foreign feeling Severus can’t quite define it exactly. Although it might be inaccurate to use the term _waking up_ , because he’s quite certain he’s barely slept at all. He’s only drifted, somewhere not very far. Whenever sleep tried to take him, he’d find himself much too aware of the warm, naked body pressed against his, of the soft breath on his collarbone, of the arm draped tightly across his torso. And every time, he’d return to the bed at once, just to make sure he wasn’t imagining any of it. Just to make sure it was real and not a cruel figment of his imagination. And though he’s never had much of an imagination to begin with, each time he was astounded to realise that it’s real.

Yesterday was real. Severus _really_ did get on a train and head to Tinworth on a whim and happen upon this boy, miraculously. He really did take him home, and Merlin only knows how, get him into his bed. He really did spend the early hours of today lying on his back in the centre of a frozen lake looking at the stars. And he did let Harry bring him back to his house only for them to fuck once more, slower than the first time, Harry’s legs wrapped tightly around Severus’ hips, hands clawing at his back. It happened, and it was just as beautiful as the first time, as improbable. But as unlikely a series of events as all of this is, it _did_ happen. Severus feels it in his guts, down to his very core. And it feels right.

When Harry shifts, pressing closer to him, it feels right to hold him tighter. It feels right to bury his fingers into the dark locks of hair, to caress them gently as the boy sleeps. And it feels right to listen to the steady breathing, to be lulled by it. To press his hand against the boy’s warm back and to feel the breath go in and out of his body, to feel his heart beating. It feels right to just lie here and _be_ here. It feels easy, like Severus has been doing this every day of his life.

The house around them is full of magic, the air brimming with it. There’s some darkness here, its presence is undeniable, but mostly Severus senses warmth, energy, and light. Harry’s house is just like him, it has an old soul, powerful and mysterious. There’s no fireplace in the bedroom, but it’s hot enough that they can just lie there naked, with the covers bunched up at the end of the bed or half trailing on the floor. Severus finds this perfectly acceptable. As the day breaks and dim light filters in, it allows him to watch Harry, to drink him up with his eyes, to memorise every detail of him.

There’s a scar on the boy’s forehead, going from his hairline to his right eyebrow. Thin and pale and strangely shaped, but it’s obvious enough that Severus wonders how he hasn’t noticed it until now. Brushing Harry’s hair away, he caresses the scar with his fingertips and finds it tingles with magic. If he didn’t know any better, he would conclude that Harry got this at work, from a spell shot at him by some vicious bastard during a raid, but it feels like an old wound. A remnant of something ancient and dark.

Harry stirs, shifting his head to lean into the caress, and he sighs deeply, a long huff of breath against Severus’ skin. Gently, so as not to wake him further, Severus moves his other hand from the boy’s back to wrap around his hip instead, and he does it so naturally, so instinctively, that it tugs at his heart. How is it that he hasn’t allowed himself something like this before now? Has he been missing out on intimacy? Maybe he should have tried harder to find someone and make it work. But then again, maybe it would have been useless. Maybe _this_ is what he was waiting for, and it just wasn’t meant to happen until now, with anyone else.

Harry hums an indistinct, half sigh. He’s awake now but still heavy with sleep, and he tilts his face to press a kiss to Severus’ jaw. A moment later, Severus finds green eyes staring up at him, and the breath catches in his throat at the fondness he sees in them, at the sort of affection he’s certain he’s never seen directed at him before in his life.

“Good morning,” he says softly, unable to think of anything else to say.

Harry’s mouth curls into that smile Severus will never, ever get tired of seeing. “Morning,” he rasps, voice thick with sleep before adding, his smile growing even more, “Husband.”

Severus scoffs, hoping he’s not blushing, but unable to look away in case he is. “You’re ridiculous.”

Smiling still, Harry shifts again, almost crawling on top of him, and presses his lips to Severus’ mouth firmly, hungrily. Severus responds at once, wrapping both arms around the boy and holding him closer and closer still, licking into his mouth. It’s natural already, how they find each other, how they move together. It’s instinctual, innate. Maybe it was there all along, whatever it is that allows Severus to give himself away, to let himself reach for what he wants without shame. It was there, it only needed to be awakened.

Boldly, he reaches between their bodies and takes both their cocks in hand, stroking firmly. The way Harry moans at this, the way Harry arches into his touch, seeking him out, sends a shiver through Severus’ whole body, from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. But it isn’t really a shiver, it’s a surge of energy, of courage, that makes Severus unafraid. This is _his_. This is offered and he can take it. It’s there, he only has to reach out.

Harry slips both hands into Severus’ hair, bringing his head closer. “Come take a bath with me,” he gasps into Severus’ mouth.

For the life of him, Severus has never heard such an attractive proposal before. He doesn’t need much prompting to follow Harry into the adjoined bathroom, and he watches in silent appreciation, eyes caressing the shape of the boy’s body as he fills the large tub. They settle together in the hot water. Merlin, it feels good. They’re both sticky from yesterday, in a way cleaning charms just can’t completely get rid of. Severus clutches Harry against him, chest pressed close to Harry’s back, his mouth finding the nape of a warm neck at once. Harry moans softly, and a moment later, he’s grasping one of Severus’ hands and leading it underwater.

“You’ll kill me,” Severus mumbles, feeling all the blood in his body rush to his cock as he slips two fingers in the boy’s arse easily, where Harry is already slick with another one those silent spells of his.

“I hope not,” Harry says, fucking back onto his fingers, and Severus hears the smile on his lips without seeing it. “Come on… do it…” he hisses, gripping Severus’ thigh so hard it’s almost painful.

Severus has never been one to let himself be ordered around, to let himself be rushed into action, and yet he finds he’s completely powerless around Harry. His body belongs to this boy. His heart too, maybe. His cock painfully hard now, he slides in with a long, slow thrust, holding Harry tightly against him, and the boy’s moan reverberates through his whole body, low and filthy. Severus feels riled up, overwhelmed at the feel of the skin against his, burning hot not just from the water, and at how Harry’s hands come up to grasp his own where they’re wrapped tightly around his chest, close to his heart. Their fingers knot together perfectly, like pieces of a puzzle.

“Yeah… fuck me…” Harry says softly, a choked hiss of a breath, as Severus thrusts long and deep and slow.

But this isn’t fucking, Severus realises as Harry’s head falls back against his shoulder and his lips devour the boy’s neck of their own volition. This isn’t fucking, it’s so much more. This _means_ something, and they both know it.

He takes his time, even when Harry tries to rush him, to urge him faster, harder. He wants to savour this, to enjoy it, because it feels like it might be taken away from him at any moment. If everything falls apart, if the world is to end soon, at least he’ll know he’s had this. Because only the oncoming apocalypse would explain how Severus Snape could be permitted to live through so blissful a moment.

“I’m close…” Harry gasps, and Severus reaches for his cock, taking him in both hands, almost reverently. Harry grips the edges of the tub for purchase, rocking back, and Severus brings him to climax like this, lips pressed to his shoulder, to his neck, kissing every inch of skin he can reach.

He comes with Harry, overwhelmed by the closeness, by the feeling of being connected, of being in perfect unison. And they hold each other for a time afterwards, in silence, catching their breath.

“Still alive?” Harry asks, tilting his head back to grin at him.

Severus catches his jaw and brings it closer to kiss softly. “Most definitely,” he mumbles.

They linger in the tub. Severus lets Harry wash his hair, and he’s never felt anything this good before, anything this intimate and pleasant. And he lets Harry soap him up, doing the same for him afterwards, unable to stop himself from kissing the skin under his hands, uncaring that he ends up with soap in his mouth as a result. Harry laughs and squirms throughout the whole process, adorably ticklish, splashing water on the floor, uncaring of the mess, but he catches Severus’ lips for a kiss whenever possible. They stay in the bath until the water grows lukewarm and foggy, until there isn’t an inch of each other’s bodies that they haven’t touched, that they haven’t discovered and worshipped.

“You hungry?” Harry asks afterwards, cupping Severus’ face so close his own is just blurry lines in Severus’ vision. “I want to cook for you.”

Something tightens in Severus’ chest at these words. “You don’t have to,” he says softly, because even though they’ve already fucked thrice, this is something else entirely. Cooking for someone the morning after has a certain deeper meaning, doesn’t it? Severus isn’t an expert, but he’s pretty sure it does.

“I _want_ to,” Harry insists, pressing his nose to Severus’ tenderly. “I _really_ want to.”

After they’ve towelled each other dry, Harry disappears into the bedroom while Severus takes a long, satisfying piss. When he exits the bathroom, the boy is nowhere to be seen but the door is open. Severus finds his clothes strewn around the room, puts them on in a hurry and ventures down the stairs.

The house is quiet except for the floorboards under his feet, and the air is warmed by permanent spells. Severus cannot fathom the amount of power that must be used to hold them up. Either there’s an elf running this home or Harry is even more powerful than he suspected.

“Harry?” he calls out when he reaches the entrance hall and still there’s no sign of the boy. But he doesn’t need to search very long before he catches a drift of conversation. He follows it along the narrow hallway toward the back of the house and down a small flight of stairs until he emerges into a large kitchen.

“–perfectly capable of doing this on my own,” Harry is saying to a particularly ugly and grumpy looking house elf while taking ingredients out of the cupboards.

“Kreacher can do it, Master. Kreacher is better at it,” the elf protests with a nasty drawl that makes Severus’ eyebrows rise. He’s certain he’s never heard an elf be so rude to his Master before, but Harry only laughs at the comment and turns to smirk at the ugly thing.

“No, you’re certainly not. And I don’t mind, I _want_ to do it. I can cook in my own house, can’t I? Why don’t you go find something to do and get out of my hair?” He doesn’t say this in any demeaning way at all. There’s almost fondness in his tone, a sort of camaraderie that wizards don’t usually show their elf servants.

“Very well, _Master_ ,” the creature rasps with obvious scorn. “Kreacher shall get out of your hair. Today’s mail is on the table,” it adds before turning to leave. That’s when it catches sight of Severus, and it stops, narrowing his eyes at him in something like confusion.

“Oh, Kreacher, this is Severus,” Harry says with a smile as he pries open a bag of flour. “You’ll probably be seeing a lot of him, so be nice.” He chuckles then, as if there’s a tough chance the elf might be nice to anyone, and Severus has no trouble believing it.

The elf looks thoroughly confused. It turns to glance back at Harry before setting its suspicious eyes on Severus again. And it stands there for a moment longer, uncomprehending, before shaking its ugly head and leaving the kitchen, dragging its feet and mumbling under its breath.

“Sorry about him,” Harry says when the elf is gone. “He’s just very old, and he’s had a hard life.”

“What are you making?” Severus asks curiously, stepping closer. Harry is wearing a loose jumper and a pair of joggers, his hair still damp from the bath. The sight of him like this, so casual and domestic, tugs at Severus’ heart. Could he have this? he wonders. Could this become a regular thing in his life?

“Pancakes,” Harry announces, grinning at Severus over his shoulder. “Only if you like pancakes?” he adds uncertainly.

“I like pancakes,” Severus reveals, very close now. He hesitates, for barely a second, before wrapping his arms around the boy from behind and burying his face in Harry’s neck to kiss it gently.

Merlin, he can’t get enough of this. Why can’t he get enough? He’s never been greedy, has always managed with less than the average man and been satisfied with it. But now that he’s had a taste, he can’t help himself. No one has ever cooked him breakfast before. No one has ever soaped him up in the bath before. No one has ever smiled at him like this, kissed him like this before, talked to him, looked at him. And he doesn’t know what to do about it, so he just decides to take it.

“Great,” Harry says, smiling brightly. “Can you get me the eggs and milk from the fridge?”

The pancakes are delicious. Harry serves them with fresh fruit and thick, sugary syrup. Severus feels ravenous and devours a second plateful while Harry rummages through the pile of letters on the table. Who receives that much mail on a Sunday? Severus is curious but he doesn’t ask. Most of the letters Harry discards without opening, sending them directly to the fireplace with a wave of his hand and a disinterested shrug. As he watches this, Severus realises he’s never seen the boy use a wand.

“Junk mail,” Harry explains shortly when he catches sight of the dubious look on his face. “Oh, there’s a parcel!”

There’s indeed a small package amidst the letters. A little box wrapped in black paper, with a small scroll attached to it. Harry unrolls it as Severus finishes the last bite of his breakfast.

“ _Dear Mr Potter_ ,” Harry reads, eyes narrowed in confusion. “ _My name is Eleanor. We have met, but you don’t remember me. I used to work for The Lethe Clinic, in which you checked last week to have part of your memory erased…_ ” Harry trails off and chuckles. “Must be a publicity stunt or something…” he adds, eyes scanning the rest of the letter. “Wow, they really thought this through…”

Severus is quite curious about this. “What else does it say?”

“ _After a certain series of events, I have come to important realisations about myself and the work in which I was involved and have since decided to part ways with the clinic. I am now trying to correct the wrongs I believe my former employer has inflicted by sending every client their files back. Unfortunately, the procedure you have been subjected to is irreversible, but I believe that the information included will provide you some clarity and the possibility to mend any additional issues in a healthier, less invasive manner…_ ” Harry puts the letter aside and grabs the parcel that came with it, tearing off the black wrapping paper and opening the box. “Oh, what’s _this_?” he asks in fascination as he takes out a small glass ball filled with silver smoke.

“It’s a memory orb,” Severus informs him, frowning. “They were very common before memory extractions and the use of Pensieves became more widespread. They’re obsolete now. And fragile. Who would risk sending one of those through the mail?” he wonders aloud.

Harry turns the orb over carefully, holding it in both hands now that he knows it’s easily breakable. “What do they do? Stock memories?”

“Not exactly. Think of it like a Muggle recording device of sorts,” Severus explains. “They store either visual memories or sound, or both, and make those accessible without too much effort or the skill required to extract. The Ministry still used them some years ago for mass record keeping after interrogations–” He stops, lest Harry inquires why he’s so knowledgeable about this.

Harry smiles at him. “How come you know all that?” he asks, of course.

“I studied Legilimency in my youth,” Severus says shortly.

Harry only shakes his head, smiling softly still. “So, this thing has a memory in it? How does it work?”

“It’s quite simple, really.” Severus takes his wand out, gives the orb a gentle tap. “ _Revelio_.”

The orb lights up at once, the silver smoke inside shining brightly, and a stranger’s voice comes out of it, breaking the stillness of the kitchen.

“ _For the record, please state your name and the name of the person you wish to erase_.”

Harry raises a curious eyebrow at this, but next second, when another voice answers, his face falls and a look of pure confusion takes over his features.

“ _My name is Harry Potter, and I wish to erase Severus Snape_.”

Their eyes meet, and confusion is not strong enough a word to describe the situation. To describe what Severus feels, and what Harry’s face shows.

“ _Tell me about him_ ,” the first voice says again. “ _Like we talked about, what comes to your mind first?_ ”

“ _Fuck, I don’t know where to start_ ,” Harry’s voice says. And it’s Harry’s voice, there’s no doubt about it, but it sounds nothing like anything Severus has ever heard Harry say. His voice is shaking with barely repressible anger. “ _Sorry for cussing… I…_ ”

“ _Take your time_ ,” the first voice says calmly. “ _Cuss as much as you like. I can assure you I’ve heard it all_.”

“I don’t understand–” Harry says softly, completely perplexed, but he doesn’t have time to say more because his own voice rises from the orb once again, trembling with anger.

“ _Severus… he’s just… he’s boring! I know that’s not a reason to erase someone, but it’s not just that… It’s everything! He’s patronising and dull and he’s mean… I’ve been thinking lately about how I was before and how I am now, and it’s like he’s changed me. I feel like I’m always angry now, and I don’t like myself when I’m with him. I don’t like myself anymore. Sometimes I can’t even stand to look at him_ –”

“What’s this?” Severus asks, throat tight and burning, unable to look away from Harry’s mortified face.

“I… I don’t know,” Harry stutters.

 _“–rude and unapologetic and… I share everything with him, but he’s just so damn closed-off. I just want a bloody relationship, but he doesn’t want to commit. Why is he with me if he doesn’t want to be with me? It’s become one-sided. Maybe it’s always been one-sided. But I need something more–_ ”

Severus’ heart is beating madly, panic setting in. He hisses, short of breath, “Why are you doing this?”

“I’m not doing anything!” Harry defends himself.

“ _All we do is fuck anymore. I mean, we don’t even talk, we just fuck. There has to be more to–_ ”

“Why did you make this? What are you playing at?” Severus asks loudly, over the voice that keeps saying these awful things. He’s furious now, furious and afraid. Was this all just a bad joke?

“I didn’t make this!” Harry cries out, his voice breaking, eyes filling with tears.

Severus stands from the table so abruptly his chair falls over. “But it’s you!” he shouts. “It’s you talking!”

“I know! I know, but I didn’t do it!” Harry yells helplessly, clearly holding back sobs. “I swear I didn’t!”

“– _only thing keeping this going is I feel sorry for him. No one else will ever be able to stand him except me! He’s so unlovable. And I feel guilty, all the time. I feel guilty for going out and having fun when he wants to stay home and be miserable. But I don’t want to be miserable. I don’t want to waste my life. I don’t want to become like him_ –”

Severus takes a step back, as if slapped in the face.

Harry rushes over, grabbing his shirt to try and stop him from leaving. “I don’t understand! I swear I didn’t–”

“So that’s not you?” Severus cries out furiously, accusingly.

Harry is sobbing now, holding onto him tightly. “It’s me, but I don’t know what’s happening!”

“So you never said what you’re saying?”

“I _swear_ I never said that! I don’t know what’s happening!” Harry repeats desperately, choking on his words.

“– _don’t even want to think about all the time I’ve wasted with him_ –”

“I didn’t say that! I don’t know what this is!”

“– _I mean, shouldn’t the good times outnumber the shit times? I don’t know what the hell to expect anymore. I want to share myself with someone, you know? I want to do this right, not just halfway_ –”

Harry is crying heavily, gripping Severus’ shirt. He’s crying so hard he can’t even get words out anymore, but Severus can’t look at him. Not with his voice saying those words.

He pries Harry’s hands from him with some difficulty, steps away, scrambles away, heart pounding and face flushed with humiliation. “I can’t stay here. I have to go,” he manages, his back already turned.

“Please don’t go!” Harry cries out in between sobs.

“ _Life is too short!_ ” the voice from the orb exclaims with disdain. “ _Life is too damn short to waste time with this kind of disappointment_.”

Severus walks all the way home, his heart in his throat, feeling nauseous and fighting the urge to scream and break things. He walks determinedly, with his head down, wanting to get as far away from Harry as possible.

He was a fool. He was a bloody fool to believe it, to think that he could have something this good, to believe that there was nothing behind it. Nothing good ever comes to him. He doesn’t understand what all this was about, but of course it would be a trap. Something to lure him, some sort of hoax to break him even more than life already has.

The owl is waiting for him when he gets home. It’s perched next to Enlil in the alley near the back door, the two birds seemingly chattering, and it holds out its leg when Severus approaches. There’s a letter and a small black box attached to it. Hands shaking, Severus unties it, and the owl departs at once, a dark shape disappearing into the pale sky.

He needs to sit, or his legs will give out on him, he’s sure of it. He barges into the house and heads straight for the laboratory, where the mess is waiting for him. And he sits on the lonely stool and he rips the letter open, hands shaking.

_Dear Mr Snape,_

_My name is Eleanor. We have met, but you don’t remember me. I used to work for The Lethe Clinic, in which you checked last week to have part of your memory erased–_

He doesn’t read any further. He knows how the rest goes. He only sits there for a long time, shaking, breathing with difficulty. And when he feels he can finally move again, he unwraps the box and takes the orb out, activating it with a weak flick of his wand.

“ _For the record, please state your name and the name of the person you wish to erase_.”

“ _My name is Severus Snape_ ,” his own voice rises from the orb, “ _and I wish to erase Harry Potter_.”

“ _Tell me about him. What comes to your mind first?_ ”

“ _There’s this… seductive quality about him. When I saw him again, two years ago, I felt… I felt drawn to him in such a way that I’d never felt drawn to anyone else before. I felt a sense of promise. That he would take me somewhere where things are exciting. It’s only with time that I realised that’s how he lures you in. With false promises, false hopes. Deep down he’s a wreck. He’s so broken and he doesn’t want to see it. And then just to prove me right, he goes and does something like this. Complete and utter disregard for anyone else’s feelings. That’s how he is, that’s how he’s always been. I should have known he’d pull something like this. That’s what he does, he tears people’s hearts out of their chests, leaving chaos and destruction in his_ _wake_ –”

Severus stands, looking around the room helplessly as his own voice keeps talking, as it keeps saying these things he’s never said. But he did say them, didn’t he? He did. And he believed what he was saying when he was saying it. There’s so much hurt and anger in his voice. So much pain.

He understands now, what happened to the laboratory. He didn’t destroy it because he was drunk, he destroyed it because he was in such pain, he just had to break something. And it makes sense, it’s believable. Because he would destroy it again now if he hadn’t already done so.

“ _He’s afraid. He looks brave but he’s afraid. And I tried as hard as I could to take his fear away but it’s useless. He’s broken beyond repair. I don’t know if it’s just the war, or everything else before, or a combination of all of it_ –”

There’s a drawing on the floor, peeking out from the mess near the broken-down cabinet near the window. When he bends to pick it up for a closer look, hands trembling, Severus already knows what he will find. It’s half covered in essence of daisyroot, but he can make out the picture, drawn by his own hand, though he has no recollection of it. On the page, ripped out of his old journal, Harry is sleeping peacefully, his face half obscured and yet perfectly defined. It’s a beautiful drawing, detailed and carefully drawn, and Severus can tell the person who drew this was familiar with the subject, with every angle and every line of the face. Yet he was the one who did this… It seems impossible but it’s true. It _has_ to be true. He knows it is.

“– _I should know, I have plenty of issues myself, plenty of insecurities, but he’s too far in denial to admit he has to–_ ”

“Hi,” a voice says, shyly and Severus’ head snaps up to see Harry standing in the doorway.

His eyes are red-rimmed and wild-looking, and he looks ready to start crying again, or ready to flee any second if Severus’ anger flares again.

“The back door was open,” he adds softly, and Severus only nods jerkily, remembering that he barged in so quickly he must have forgotten to close it. “Can I… can I come in here?” Harry asks, surely sensing the protection charms on the room.

Severus nods again, and Harry approaches slowly, trying to avoid the mess on the floor.

“– _wants people to believe he’s this rebellious, free-spirit_ –” the voice continues from the glowing orb on the counter as Severus hands Harry the letter, his throat too tight to explain, even though there’s no need to explain anything.

“I found this,” he manages after a while, handing Harry the drawing as well, and he watches as Harry stares at it, his eyes filling with tears again.

“– _would want to have anything to do with someone so goddamn broken_ –”

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he adds weakly, suddenly furious at the voice that’s saying such horrible things. He understands now how Harry felt earlier. He understands exactly, the desperation, the confusion, the anger.

“It’s okay,” Harry says softly, weakly. “I… I like you so much. I hate that I did this to you… I… I hate that I said those things about you.”

“I’ll shut this off.” Severus goes to grab the orb, but Harry stops him.

“No, don’t… It’s… it’s only fair,” he mumbles, still gripping the letter and the drawing.

“– _bloody pathetic when you think about it! There are people who want to help him! He’s not alone anymore. But he’s so bloody stubborn_ –”

“Can I get you some tea?” Severus asks, because he doesn’t know what else to say at this point.

Harry nods jerkily, avoiding his eyes. “Please. I’m… I’m cold,” he says softly, shivering.

Severus leaves him there, heading up the stairs, away from the voice, away from it all. He doesn’t know if he wants to cry or throw up or run away. If he wants to yell or break something or burn something. He concentrates on the tea. He makes only one cup for Harry. He cannot drink anything, he can’t consume anything more or it’ll leave his body at once.

Harry is still standing in the centre of the room when he returns, still clutching at the letter and the drawing. He hasn’t moved an inch. He’s just standing there, listening to the orb. The voice is vicious now, almost disgusted, in the way a person too furious, too hurt to be rational, would speak.

“– _and everyone was looking at him. I was so fucking embarrassed. That’s what occurred to me that night, that the only way Harry thinks he can get people to like him is to let them fuck him, or in that case, dangle the possibility of them fucking him in front of their faces. And I think deep down, he’s so desperate and so insecure that he’ll sooner or later just go around fucking everyone_ –”

A sob escapes Harry’s throat, and his eyes are wide and afraid as he turns to Severus. “I don’t do that,” he mumbles.

“I wouldn’t think that,” Severus answers, his voice small and ashamed.

“I don’t,” Harry insists.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“– _sure he’s cheated on me. He must have. I’m certain of it. I don’t know with whom, or how many times, but I bet he did. Numerous times. He needs that for validation_.”

Harry is crying openly now. “I wouldn’t,” he stutters. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I don’t…”

Severus takes a step forward, but he stops there, holding the cup of tea, making no move to hand it to Harry. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… I’m sure I didn’t really mean it.”

Harry takes a long, deep, shuddering breath, holding his sobs in. Then he puts the letter and the drawing down and he wipes his face with the sleeve of his robe. “I’m sorry about this mess,” he says softly, voice shaking. “I’ll just… I’ll just go now. I’m so… confused. I can’t be here now. I shouldn’t have come.”

Severus is at a complete loss, unable to move even though he wants to stop him. He doesn’t want Harry to leave. They need to face this, to make sense of this. “I’m sorry too.”

“It was… It was nice meeting you and all,” Harry says softly before leaving the room, not daring to look at Severus’ face.

Severus just stands there, conflicted, holding the fuming cup of tea. This can’t be the end of it, can’t it? Surely there must be a way to fix this. It doesn’t matter what this was. It doesn’t matter what they did to each other before. He knows what he felt, he knows it was real. Nothing that happened before matters.

“– _should have done this a long time ago_ ,” the voice continues. “ _I can’t wait until he’s a stranger to me_.”

Severus puts the tea down on the counter so fast the liquid sloshes everywhere. He manages to catch Harry right before the boy steps through the back door.

“Wait! Harry, wait!” he calls out shakily.

Harry stops, hesitates for a time before turning to look back at him, his expression tired and confused and broken. “What?”

Severus shrugs, taking a small step forward. “I don’t… I just want you to wait.”

Harry shakes his head, eyes tearing up again. “What for?”

“I don’t know!” Severus insists, confused. “I don’t want you to go yet. Please, just… stay awhile.”

Harry stares at him silently, at a complete loss, but there’s hope in his green eyes, just a flicker of it. “How could you possibly want me to stay?”

Severus shrugs again, helplessly. “I don’t know. But I want you to stay.”

Harry just stares. He looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t. He just stands there, staring. Severus feels completely naked and pried open under his gaze.

“I want you,” Severus admits finally. “I can’t think of anything I don’t like about you.”

Harry lets out a deep, shuddering breath, sobs threatening to take over once more. “But you will,” he says weakly. “You’ll think of things. And I’ll think of things. And we’ll fight. And you’ll get mad at me, and I’ll get bored with you. And we’ll hate each other–”

“So be it.”

Harry stops, tears streaming down his face now, eyes wide with disbelief. “What?”

“So be it,” Severus repeats. His voice breaks, but he’s never been so certain about anything in his life before. He steps closer, reaching out to cup the boy’s face in his hands. “I’ll take all of it.”

“It’ll never work,” Harry mumbles, but he’s leaning into Severus’ touch, seeking him out. “I’ll disappoint you,” he adds in between sobs. “I’ll scare you away.”

Severus holds him tight, presses a kiss to his forehead. “I don’t care. I want you anyway.”

And he means it. It doesn’t matter what happens next. He’ll take all of it, the good and the bad. No matter what happened to them before, no matter who those two strangers were who ended up hurting each other. This will be different. It already is different, isn’t it?

He holds Harry as the boy clings to him, crying softly into his neck. “It’s okay,” Severus whispers, holding him tighter still. “We’ll be okay… You don’t scare me.”

* * *

_How you die out in me_   
_Down to the last worn out knot of breath_   
_You’re there with a splinter of life_

PAUL CELAN


End file.
